_JH    , 


INDIAN  LIFE 


x 


OUR  ASIATIC 
NEIGHBOURS 

EDITED  BY 

WILLIAM  HARBUTT  DAWSON 


INDIAN  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND 
COUNTRY 


UNIV 


4  OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY.  LOS  AWGffl* 


Indian  Life  in  Town  and 
Country 


BY 


HERBERT  COMPTON 

Author  of  "  A  Free  Lance  in  a  Far  Land,"  "  A  King's 
Hussar,"  etc. 


PUBLISHED  FOR  THE 

BAY  VIEW  READING  CLUB 

CENTRAL  OFFICE:  BOSTON  BOULEVARD 

DETROIT,  MICH. 

BY  G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 


COPYRIGHT,  1904 

BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Ube  Knickerbocker  frees,  flew 


CONTENTS 

NATIVE  INDIAN 
CHAPTER  i 


PAGE 
3 


INDIA  AS  IT  Is 

CHAPTER  II 
CASTE 17 

CHAPTER  III 
MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS  ......     36 

CHAPTER  IV 
FROM  RYOTS  TO  RAJAHS 51 

CHAPTER  V 
JACKS  IN  OFFICE 67 

CHAPTER  VI 
MEN-AT-ARMS  AND  SOME  OTHERS  .       .      81 

CHAPTER  VII 
LADIES  LAST 98 

CHAPTER  VIII 
WOMAN'S  WRONGS ,    113 


2126198 


vi  Contents 

CHAPTER  IX 

PAGE 

THE  INDIAN  AT  HOME 127 

CHAPTER  X 
IN  THE  SUNSHINE 141 

CHAPTER  XI 
THE  GOUJEN  EAST 155 

CHAPTER  XII 
ON  THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS 168 

ANGI<O- INDIAN  LIFE 

CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  LAND  OF  EXILE 183 

CHAPTER  XIV 
ANGLO-INDIAN  CASTES 199 

CHAPTER  XV 

BUNGALOW  LIFE 212 

CHAPTER  XVI 
OUT-OF-DOOR  LIFE 227 

CHAPTER  XVII 
SEPIA  SURROUNDINGS 244 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  GLAD  CRY 259 

INDEX 273 


INDIAN  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND 
COUNTRY 


NATIVE    INDIAN    LIFE 


INDIAN  LIFE  IN  TOWN 
AND  COUNTRY 


CHAPTER  I 

INDIA  AS  IT  IS 

IT  is  a  habit  of  current  speech  to  refer  to  In- 
dia much  as  one  does  to  France,  Spain,  or 
Germany,  conscious  only  that  it  is  a  far  more 
extensive  country.  In  the  map  of  the  world,  it  is 
depicted  as  an  all -red  possession,  which  tends  to 
the  suggestion  of  a  homogeneous  land.  But  it  is, 
in  fact,  a  conglomeration  of  distinct  kingdoms  and 
peoples,  differing  as  widely  in  conditions  and  char- 
acteristics as  Russia  and  Portugal,  or  the  Nor- 
wegian and  the  Turk. 

The  term  "  Indian  "  should  convey  to  the  mind 
the  same  cosmopolitan  suggestion  as  the  expres- 
sion "European."  Under  this  really  generic  de- 
signation are  grouped  numerous  races  as  distinct 
and  individual  as  the  Frenchman  and  the  German, 
the  Dutchman  and  the  Greek.  And  when  we 
3 


4  Indian  Life 

come  to  discuss  "  Our  Neighbour  the  Indian,"  it 
must  be  understood  we  are  arbitrarily  making 
concrete  what  is  in  the  abstract  a  heterogeneous, 
polyglot  combination  of  individuals,  who  belong 
to  a  dozen  different  nationalities,  speak  a  Babel  of 
tongues,  and  live  in  a  variety  of  countries,  the 
physical  features  of  which  differ  as  much  as  their 
climatic  conditions. 

If  we  can  suppose  ourselves  in  the  position  of 
p.  Cossack  riding  through  the  Khyber  Pass,  and 
cantering  down  to  Calcutta,  Cape  Comorin,  and 
Karachi,  we  shall  be  able  to  get  the  best  idea  of 
the  races  who  inhabit  India  in  their  appropriate 
distribution  and  sequence,,  and  observe  them 
toning  off  like  a  chromatic  scale.  Our  Cossack 
will  find  them  as  diverse  as  if  he  penetrated  from 
Moscow  to  Sweden,  Spain,  and  Greece.  As  he 
emerges  from  the  rugged  Pass  which  has  been  the 
principal  gateway  of  invasion,  he  will  be  con- 
fronted with  bearded  Mahomedans,  speaking 
Push  to;  and  stalwart  Sikhs,  speaking  Punjabi, 
who  will  gaze  at  the  intruder  with  the  calm 
confidence  begotten  of  broad  shoulders,  brawny 
muscles,  and  a  stature  often  exceeding  six  feet. 
Penetrating  farther,  he  will  observe  but  little  de- 
terioration in  the  clean-run  men  of  Rohilkhund 
and  Oudh,  the  hardy  Jat  cultivators  about  Delhi, 
the  martial  Rajpoots  of  Rajputana,  and  the  hardy 
Baluchis  of  the  Indus  Valley  (all  speaking  strange 
tongues),  as  they  rise  in  his  path  in  the  segment 
of  a  circle  which  stretches  from  mid-Himalayas  to 


India  As  It  Is  5 

mid-Sind.  These  races  will  coincide  physically 
with  the  Northern  peoples  of  Europe,  the  Scandi- 
navian, Saxon,  Celt,  and  Teuton.  Their  origin 
is  Aryan,  Scythian,  Arab,  and  Tartar. 

Pursuing  his  road  east,  south-east,  and  south, 
the  Cossack  will  discover  in  the  inhabitants  of 
Lower  Sind,  Kattywar,  Guzerat,  the  Northern 
Deccan,  Central  India,  and  the  Upper  Gangetic 
Valley,  races  somewhat  smaller  in  stature  and 
darker  in  complexion  (speaking  several  new  lan- 
guages), who  may  not  be  inaptly  compared  to  the 
French,  the  Slavs,  and  the  Hungarians.  The 
next  radius  of  the  circle  brings  us  to  the  coastal 
countries,  where  dwell  the  effeminate  Bengalis, 
the  midget  races  who  inhabit  the  Malabar  sea- 
board, and  the  Tamil  and  Talugu  speaking  folk 
of  Southern  India.  These,  and  the  Burmese  in 
the  Far  Bast,  may  fitly  represent  the  Mediter- 
ranean nationalities  of  Europe.  They  spring 
from  Dravidian  and  Mongolian  stock,  and  the  in- 
fusion of  Aryan  with  non-Aryan  blood.  The 
scale  of  physical  development  is  distinctly  a  slid- 
ing one,  as  it  drops  down  the  peninsula,  the 
comparative  giants  of  the  north  melting  into  the 
middle-sized  Indo- Mongolians  of  the  Far  East, 
and  the  Dravidian  dwarfs  of  the  extreme  south. 
Here  and  there,  chiefly  in  mountain  or  desert 
tracts,  aboriginal  races  will  have  been  met,  be- 
longing to  the  Kolarian  division,  and  displaying 
characteristics  of  their  own.  If  you  could  muster 
a  representative  assemblage  of  all  these  races,  you 


6  Indian  Life 

would  find  that  they  expressed  themselves  in  over 
seventy  different  tongues,  represented  every  shade 
of  complexion,  and  every  degree  of  physical  de- 
velopment, and  displayed  far  greater  divergencies 
than  a  similar  gathering  from  Continental  Europe 
could  produce. 

In  similar  wise,  our  roving  Cossack  will  have 
passed  through  as  many  countries  as  there  are 
races.  On  his  entry  into  India,  Cashmere,  on  his 
left,  will  have  supplied  a  standard  of  terrestrial 
perfection.  It  is  the  Riviera  of  our  Eastern  Em- 
pire, where,  in  the  past,  the  Mogul  Emperors  were 
wont  to  revel,  and  where,  in  the  present,  the  for- 
tunate Anglo-Indian  flits  when  he  desires  to  enjoy 
a  supreme  holiday.  Radiating  east  and  south, 
the  Cossack  will  perceive  in  the  snowy  slopes  and 
cool  valleys  of  the  Himalayas,  the  sub-montane 
districts  below  them,  the  level  plains  of  the  Pun- 
jab, the  stifling  sands  of  Sind,  the  arid  deserts  of 
Rajputana,  the  steaming  valley  of  the  Gangetic 
basin,  the  rugged  highlands  of  Central  India,  the 
tableland  of  the  Deccan,  the  garden  province  of 
Guzerat,  the  palm-fringed  Malabar  coast,  the 
paddy-fields  of  Burmah,  the  rocky  hinterlands  of 
the  interior  of  Southern  India,  the  fertile  coastal 
territories  of  the  Coromandel,  the  forested  tracts 
of  the  Ghauts,  Mysore,  and  the  Wynaad,  the 
rolling  downs  of  the  Neilgherries,  and  the  tropic 
glories  of  Travancore — he  will  recognise  in  all 
these  varying  scenes  distinct  countries,  differing 
one  from  another  in  aspect  and  altitude,  in  flora 


India  As  It  Is  7 

and  fauna,  and  in  soil  and  climate,  as  completely 
as  do  the  peoples  who  inhabit  them  in  race, 
religion,  and  language. 

Meanwhile,  our  hardy  traveller  might  have  ex- 
perienced vicissitudes  of  temperature  and  rainfall 
able  to  confound  all  his  previous  knowledge,  even 
if  it  comprehended  a  winter  on  the  shores  of  the 
Baltic,  and  a  summer  on  those  of  the  Black  Sea. 
For  instance,  at  Murree,  in  the  Punjab,  a  hill  sta- 
tion within  a  few  hours  of  the  Indian  Aldershot, 
he  might  have  been  buried  in  six  feet  of  snow;  at 
Cheerapoouji,  in  Assam,  half-drowned  in  a  rain- 
fall that  exceeds  four  hundred  inches  a  year. 
The  process  of  thawing  could  have  been  acceler- 
ated by  a  trip  to  Jacobabad  in  Sind,  where  the 
thermometer  looks  down  at  130  degrees  in  the 
shade;  and  for  a  dry  climate  Bickaneer  is  hard  to 
beat,  seeing  that  twenty-four  months  may  pass 
without  any  rain  at  all.  Incidentally,  our  enter- 
prising Cossack  might  have  discovered  districts 
where  the  thermometer  straddles  over  eighty  de- 
grees in  the  twelve  mouths,,  and  others  where  the 
sluggish  mercury  is  seldom  called  upon  to  execute 
a  variant  of  more  than  a  dozen.  So  also  with  the 
rainfall:  here  it  may  continue  for  eight  months, 
whilst  two  monsoons  blow  their  vapours  over  the 
land;  and  there  confine  itself  to  eight  weeks  of 
summer  showers.  To  gain  an  extended  idea  of 
what  is  practicable  in  the  vagaries  of  the  firma- 
ment, a  study  of  the  meteorological  phenomena  of 
England's  Eastern  Empire  will  enlarge  the  mind. 


8  Indian  Life 

Concerning  a  conglomeration  of  countries  so  di- 
versified in  people,  topography,  and  climate,  it  is 
difficult  to  generalise.  As  we  survey  the  kaleido- 
scopic whole,  the  wonder  rises  to  find  them  under 
a  single  rule.  One  law  runs  current  through  all 
these  kingdoms  and  peoples;  one  brain  directs 
them.  The  edict  issued  at  Simla  or  Calcutta  can 
control  with  equal  force  this  cosmopolitan  land. 
And  yet  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  what  is 
now  a  prosperous  and  peaceful  Empire  was  a  vast 
cockpit  for  warring  nations,  a  seething  hotbed  of 
opposing  nationalities,  and  a  veritable  scene  of 
unceasing  tumult  and  battle. 

For  nearly  fifty  years,  not  a  cannon  has  been 
fired  in  anger  within  the  confines  proper  of  British 
India,  and  that  is  the  greatest  victory  the  Eng- 
lish have  achieved  in  the  East.  Well  might  De 
Tocqueville  write :  ' '  There  has  never  been  any- 
thing so  wonderful  under  the  sun  as  the  conquest, 
and,  still  more,  the  government,  of  India  by  the 
British." 

Let  us  glance  back  a  hundred  years  and  draw 
a  parallel.  In  1802,  Napoleon  wrung  from  the 
English  the  peace  of  Amiens — armistice,  we  may 
better  call  it — and  compelled  them  to  surrender 
all  that  they  had  won  during  the  war  with  the 
French  Republic.  For  the  next  decade,  the  pro- 
gress and  prestige  of  France  in  Europe  resembled 
that  of  England  in  India.  Each  was  a  career  of 
conquest.  Wellesley,  who  broke  the  power  of  the 
Sultan  of  Mysore  and  the  Mahrattas,  was,  in 


India  As  It  Is  9 

effect,  the  Napoleon  of  India.  He  carried  Eng- 
land into  the  dominant  position.  Had  Napoleon 
consolidated  and  extended  his  conquests  in  the 
West  as  England  did  in  the  East,  the  whole  of 
Europe  to-day  would  have  been  under  the  peace- 
ful dominion  of  France.  Had  the  English  made 
no  better  use  of  their  advantages  than  the  Cor- 
sican,  they  would  to-day  be  confined  to  the  Gan- 
getic  basin,  a  moderate  territory  in  Madras, 
Bombay  city,  a»d  one  or  two  ports  on  the  Mala- 
bar coast.  But  they  had  the  genius  to  hold, 
assimilate,  and  extend.  Where  their  foot  was 
planted  there  it  stayed,  and  presently  advanced. 
And  although  they  suffered  a  Moscow  in  Afghan- 
istan in  the  'forties,  they  avoided  a  Waterloo  at 
Delhi  in  the  'fifties,  and  rose  as  high  above  their 
difficulties  as  Napoleon  fell  below  his.  India  of 
to-day,  with  its  countless  kingdoms,  principalities, 
and  peoples,  conquered  and  held  by  the  sword,  yet 
ruled  in  absolute  internal  peace,  with  justice,  mod- 
eration, and  benefit  to  its  inhabitants,  shows  what 
a  nation  can  do  that  can  govern  as  well  as  conquer. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  what  causes  have  principally 
operated  to  bring  about  this  marvellous  result; 
how  much  should  be  attributed  to  the  genius  of 
the  conquering  race  for  governing,  how  much  to 
the  adaptability  of  the  conquered  race  for  being 
governed.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  natives  of 
India,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  turbulent  Ma- 
homedans,  are  law-abiding  to  the  point  of  ser- 
vility. They  are  no  strangers  to  submission,  and 


io  Indian  Life 

perhaps  the  English  have  reaped  where  others 
have  sown.  Provided  you  do  not  interfere  with 
their  two  sacred  prejudices, — their  caste  and  wo- 
men,— they  will  endure  more  than  most  people. 
For  centuries,  they  have  lived  in  a  subject  state; 
subject  to  ruthless  conquerors;  subject  to  pesti- 
lence and  famine;  subject  to  the  exactions  of  their 
own  rulers.  They  were  pliable  material  to  work 
upon,  and  when  they  came  under  the  British 
yoke,  meek,  spiritless,  and  browbeaten.  Instead 
of  oppressing  them,  England  ameliorated  their 
condition,  and  although  their  prejudices  are 
monumental,  they  had  the  wit  to  see  that  their 
circumstances  were  improved,  and  the  common- 
sense  to  adapt  themselves  to  them.  That  was  in 
the  old  days,  before  they  were  educated.  Not- 
withstanding they  are  no  older  than  the  'sixties, 
from  that  time  began  the  period  of  present  transi- 
tion, which  is  slowly  but  surely  transforming  the 
peoples  of  India,  and  changing  the  East,  that  has 
been  called  Unchanging. 

Modern  India  dates  from  the  opening  of  the 
Suez  Canal,  and  the  influx  of  prosperity  and  civil- 
isation that  followed  it.  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps 
did  more  for  the  Indian  Empire  in  one  decade 
than  England  did  in  all  the  previous  ones.  In 
these  days,  when  one  has  only  to  go  to  Ludgate 
Circus  to  take  a  ticket  for  Central  Africa,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  a  generation  ago  there  were 
great  tracts  in  the  Indian  Empire  where  you 
habitually  travelled  on  men's  shoulders  to  reach 


India  As  It  Is  n 

your  destination.  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that 
you  have  not  to  do  so  still — I  have  a  vivid  recol- 
lection, not  so  many  months  ago,  of  a  twelve 
hours'  journey  in  a  "  dhoolie  "  or  palanquin — but 
twenty-five  thousand  miles  of  railway  have  been 
built  since  1870.  The  railway  is  the  greatest  re- 
volutionist of  modern  times,  and  especially  in  a 
country  like  India,  where  the  inhabitants  are 
bound  in  the  iron  chains  of  caste,  and  where  na- 
tions are  divided  from  nations,  and  sections  from 
sections,  by  gaps  there  were  no  means  of  bridg- 
ing until  the  third-class  railway  carriage  came, 
not  only  to  transport  them,  but  to  shuffle  them 
up,  teach  them  to  mingle  with  one  another,  and 
cast  them  cheek  by  jowl  in  the  same  compart- 
ment. The  introduction  of  transit  was  followed 
by  travel,  the  best  form  of  education.  People 
who  see  a  little  want  to  see  more;  who  learn  a 
little  want  to  learn  more.  The  peasant  who 
stole  a  peep  at  the  train  gliding  by,  his  super- 
stitious mind  convinced  it  was  a  fearful  and 
unclean  thing,  found  familiarity  breed  content  in- 
stead of  contempt,  for  it  presently  developed  into 
a  desire  to  ride  therein.  Thereafter,  he  became 
an  unconscious  emissary  of  civilisation,  who  was 
never  weary  of  detailing  his  experiences,  and  the 
incentive  for  others  to  follow  in  his  bold  footsteps. 
The  railways  of  India  are  probably  the  most 
crowded  with  passenger  traffic  of  any  in  the  world, 
and  not  one  man  in  a  hundred  thousand  of  those 
who  use  them  to-day  would  have  met,  travelled, 


12  Indian  Life 

and  rubbed  shoulders  forty  years  ago.  The  same 
may  of  course  be  said  of  any  country  or  continent; 
but,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  the  act  of  ' '  rubbing 
shoulders ' '  implies  far  more  in  India  than  in  any 
other  part  of  the  world. 

I  have  endeavoured  to  show  by  a  rapid  survey 
the  varying  peoples  which  the  Empire  contains, 
but  the  point  is  one  which  will  bear  a  little  more 
detailed  treatment,  especially  as  the  scope  of  this 
book  does  not  admit  of  enlargement  on  it  here- 
after. The  main  division  of  the  inhabitants  is 
based  on  religion.  They  are  divided  into  Hindus, 
and  Mahomedans,  the  former  numbering  (roughly 
speaking)  a  hundred  and  eighty  millions,  and  the 
latter  sixty.  The  cleavage  of  ideas,  morals,  man- 
ners, and  characteristics  between  them  is  as  abso- 
lute as  between  either  of  them  and  Europeans,  or 
between  Turks  and  Christians  in  South-Eastern 
Europe. 

The  Mahomedans  are  the  descendants  of  the 
Moslem  invaders  who,  for  a  thousand  years, 
poured  into  India  from  the  West,  and  established 
kingdoms  and  dynasties  of  their  own,  which  found 
a  zenith  in  the  Mogul  Empire.  Its  fall  left  the 
country  dotted  with  Mahomednn  principalities 
usurped  by  the  Viceroys  who  had  broken  free 
from  the  Imperial  authority.  Inheritors  of  such 
a  history,  it  is  only  natural  that  the  Mahomedans 
should  retain  the  instincts  of  a  conquering  class, 
and  any  turbulence  or  unrest  generally  arises  in 
communities  of  that  faith. 


India  As  It  Is  13 

The  downfall  of  the  Mogul  was  followed  by  a 
convulsion  of  war  and  conquest,  the  beginning  of 
which  marked  the  establishment  of  British  power 
in  India,  and  the  end  saw  two  thirds  of  it  under 
England's  direct  rule,  and  the  remainder  tribu- 
tary to  her.  In  that  portion,  she  has  kept  her 
hands  off  the  only  considerable  Mahomedan  states 
— those  of  Hyderabad  and  Bhawalpur,  and  the 
Mahomedan  territory  of  Cashmere,  ruled  by  a 
Hindu  dynasty.  The  Hindu  states  include  My- 
sore, Travancore,  and  those  governed  by  Mah- 
ratta,  Rajpoot,  and  Sikh  rulers. 

The  British  terr.tory  is  divided  into  six  large 
provinces — Bengal,  Bombay,  Madras,  the  North- 
West  Provinces  and  Oudh,  the  Punjab,  and  Bur- 
mah — and  eight  smaller  ones,  administered  by 
Governors,  Lieutenant- Governors,  Chief-Com- 
missioners and  Agents  to  the  Governor-General, 
the  whole  under  the  Viceroy,  who  represents  the 
King-Emperor,  and  has  been  described  as  His 
Majesty's  Greatest  Subject.  These  provinces  in- 
clude what  were  once  the  high  and  puissant  king- 
doms of  the  Subahdar  of  Bengal,  the  Nawab  of 
the  Carnatic,  the  Peshwa  of  the  Mahrattas,  the 
Emperor  of  Delhi  (more  commonly  known  as  the 
Great  Mogul),  the  King  of  Oudh,  the  Maharajah  of 
the  Punjab,  the  King  of  Burmah,  and  the  Ameers 
of  Sind.  All  these  were  in  their  day  potentates  of 
the  first  magnitude  in  the  estimation  of  their  con- 
temporaries; many  of  them  the  English  sued  for 
favours.  These  dynasties  have  been  irrevocably 


14  Indian  Life 

destroyed  by  British  conquest  and  annexation — 
wiped  out  of  existence  as  completely  as  Poland. 

Besides  these  two  leading  religious  denomina- 
tions into  which  India  has  been  broadly  divided, 
there  are  several  other  smaller  ones  to  be  taken 
into  consideration.  Some  of  them  are  very  in- 
teresting and  curious.  The  wild  aboriginal  tribes, 
who  declined  conversion  to  Hinduism  when  the 
great  Aryan  invasion  swept  over  the  country, 
number  about  ten  millions.  Buddhism  is  pro- 
fessed by  another  ten  millions,  chiefly  resident  in 
Burmah,  whilst  a  third  ten  millions  in  the  Punjab 
follow  the  Sikh  faith.  The  Sikhs  are  a  sect  apart, 
and  sprang  into  existence  in  quite  recent  times, 
comparatively  speaking.  The  purity  of  their 
tenets,  their  tolerance,  and  the  cleanliness  of  their 
lives  contrast  favourably  with  the  Hindus  and 
Mahomedans  from  whom  they  sprang.  L,ike  the 
latter,  they  admit  proselytes  to  their  religion,  but 
no  one  who  is  not  born  one  can  become  a  Hindu. 
The  Jains,  numbering  about  two  millions,  repre- 
sent the  survival  of  Buddhism  in  Western  India, 
and  are  a  peculiar  people  who  may  be  likened  to 
Quakers.  Their  religion  directs  them  to  do  no 
harm  to  any  living  thing,  and  to  desire  nothing 
inordinately.  As  a  class  they  have  prospered 
amazingly,  and  many  of  the  wealthiest  bankers  in 
India  belong  to  this  persuasion.  The  Parsis  loom 
large  in  the  British  eye,  and  Bethnal  Green  has 
selected  one  to  represent  it  at  St.  Stephen's.  They 
are  an  alien  folk  who  emigrated  from  Persia  into 


India  As  It  Is  15 

Western  India,  and  only  number  about  a  hundred 
thousand.  Their  position  in  the  country  is  purely 
commercial,  but  they  have  the  genius  of  the  Jews 
and  the  shrewdness  of  the  Scotch.  On  the  Mala- 
bar coast  there  are  two  interesting  races  in  the 
Moplahs,  descended  from  the  Arabs  trading  to 
those  parts  in  remote  times,  and  a  small  but  ex- 
ceedingly curious  community  of  Jews,  who  retain 
the  customs  and  characteristics  of  the  Chosen 
People,  and  their  ancient  faith,  although  so  long 
and  completely  cut  off  from  their  co-religionists. 
They  lay  claim  to  be  the  lost  tribes,  as  also  do  the 
Afghans  of  the  north-west  frontier,  whose  Semitic 
cast  of  countenance  is  very  marked.  In  the  ex- 
treme south  of  India,  St.  Francis  Xavier's  con- 
verts teem  in  thousands,  still  professing  the 
Roman  Catholic  faith,  and  there  is  a  Nestorian 
community  whose  conversion  is  ascribed  to  St. 
Thomas  the  Apostle.  As  regards  the  purely 
heathen  forms  of  worship,  the  Todas  and  other 
wild  races  still  sacrifice  to  their  gods  in  the 
jungles,  where  they  dwell  shy  and  secluded. 
There  are  two  divisions  of  the  Mahomedans,  cor- 
responding to  the  Roman  and  Anglo-Catholics  of 
Christianity,  and  exclusive  of  a  fanatical  offshoot 
known  as  Wahabis.  Hinduism  is  divided  into  an 
infinity  of  sects.  And,  finally,  it  may  surprise 
the  reader  to  learn  that  in  this  subject-land,  where 
men  are  reckoned  by  the  million  and  the  hundred 
million,  there  are  less  than  a  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  English,  and  about  the  same  number  of 


1 6  Indian  Life 

Eurasians,  or  half-castes,  of  whom  a  proportion 
are  descended  from  Portuguese. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  religion  divides  this 
complex  country  almost  as  much  as  race  and  lan- 
guage. Intermarriage  between  the  different  peo- 
ples and  religions  is  absolutely  unknown,  and 
with  the  fall  of  the  Mogul  Empire  proselytism 
ceased  to  exist,  and  the  only  persons  systemat- 
ically seeking  to  convert  others  to  their  creed 
are  the  Christian  missionaries. 

Social  exclusiveness  is  the  universal  rule  in  In- 
dia, and  in  a  country  filled  with  varying  elements 
there  is  no  commingling  of  them.  The  Indian 
peoples  are  organically  antagonistic  to  amalgama- 
tion in  any  shape  or  form,  and  hold  themselves  as 
distinct  from  one  another  in  their  social  and  do- 
mestic relations  as  do  the  different  species  of  ani- 
mals. It  is  due  to  this  that  they  have  managed 
to  preserve  intact  their  respective  individualities 
through  so  many  centuries,  and  hence  it  happens 
that  the  country  generalised  as  "  India  "  is  really 
a  congeries  of  separate  nations,  and  "  Our  Neigh- 
bour the  Indian  "  the  cosmopolitan  personage  he 
has  been  described. 


CHAPTER  II 

CASTE 

THE  Englishman  has  sometimes  been  accused 
of  insularity.  If  so  be  it  is  true,  you  would 
have  to  take  your  definition  from  archipelago  to 
obtain  a  term  for  the  corresponding  quality  in  the 
Hindu  of  India.  For  the  system  of  caste  has  cut 
him  up  into  a  thousand  little  bits  of  exclusiveness, 
each  instinct  with  insularity  reduced  ad  absurdum. 

Caste  is  a  great  social  organisation  which  gov- 
erns and  directs  the  Hindu  in  every  aspect  and 
action  of  his  daily  life.  He  is  born  with  it;  he 
cannot  change  it;  and  he  has  oftentimes  sacrificed 
his  life  rather  than  ' '  break  ' '  it.  It  is  the  very 
breath  of  his  nostrils.  To  preserve  his  caste  is  the 
be-all  and  the  end-all  of  his  career  in  this  world; 
to  break  it  is  worse  than  the  commission  of  any 
criminal  offence.  He  will  perjure  himself  and 
steal  cheerfully,  he  will  maim  and  murder  with- 
out compunction,  but  the  most  abandoned  villain 
will  respect  the  laws  of  his  caste,  and  yield  blind 
obedience  to  its  rules. 

Notwithstanding  that  it  is  unreasonable  and 
unreasoning,  unjust,  arbitrary,  and  cruel,  caste  is 

2 

17 


1 8  Indian  Life 

a  great  moral  force.  The  average  native  will  lie 
about  everything  except  his  caste;  it  is  a  restrain- 
ing influence  on  his  life,  and  has  introduced  a 
code  of  conduct  (however  misguided)  into  a  char- 
acter whose  moral  conceptions  would  otherwise 
permit  it  to  run  riot.  There  are  those  who  de- 
claim against  caste,  and  would  sweep  it  away — 
notably  the  missionary;  there  are  "advanced 
natives  "  who  declare  that  it  is  the  real  obstacle  to 
progress  in  India,  and  has  brought  civilisation  to 
a  standstill;  but,  as  one  of  them  naively  admits, 
"  the  majority  of  those  who  denounce  it  are  men 
whom  it  has  virtually  repudiated."  In  practice 
you  have  only  to  see  the  result  of  deprivation  of 
caste  in  an  individual  to  realise  how  great  is  his 
moral  fall  when  the  Hindu  is  "  outcasted."  He 
is  like  an  officer  who  has  been  cashiered,  or  a 
priest  unfrocked;  a  "  rank  bad  'un  "  who  has  lost 
all  sense  of  self-respect,  however  superficial  it 
might  have  been. 

There  are  four  fundamental  divisions  of  caste 
— the  priestly  or  Brahmin,  the  warrior,  the  trad- 
ing, and  the  labouring — and  these,  again,  are 
divided  into  sub-sections  numbering  some  thou- 
sands. Caste  is  a  purely  Hindu  institution;  there 
is  no  "  caste"  in  the  sense  in  which  we  are  ex- 
amining it  amongst  the  Mahomedaus,  Buddhists, 
Sikhs,  and  other  non-Hindu  races,  and  even 
amongst  the  Hindus  themselves,  there  is  a  sub- 
stratum below  the  labouring  caste  which  has 
none  at  all,  and  is  termed  Pariah,  or  outcaste. 


Caste  19 

The  Brahmin,  or  priest,  is  a  gilt-edged  in- 
dividual, who  neither  toils  nor  spins.  There  are 
twenty  millions  of  Brahmins  who  represent  heredi- 
tary holiness,  and  to  flatter,  feast,  and  fee  whom 
is  the  bounden  duty  of  all  good  Hindus  of  inferior 
birth.  Manu,  the  lawgiver  of  Hinduism,  who 
flourished  five  hundred  years  before  Christ,  as- 
signed to  the  Brahmins  the  "  duty  "of"  receiving 
gifts,"  and  declared  them  by  right  of  birth  the 
lords  of  creation,  through  whose  benevolence  the 
rest  of  the  community  enjoyed  what  they  were 
permitted  to  possess.  The  Brahmins  have  lived 
up  to  the  privileges  conferred  on  them,  with  an  un- 
deviating  exactitude  during  the  last  twenty-four 
centuries,  and  their  influence  is  still  enormous. 
They  are  the  brain-power  as  well  as  the  blood- 
suckers of  Hinduism;  the  Jesuits  of  the  East. 
They  bless,  curse,  absolve,  expound,  teach,  pre- 
dict, decide,  and  govern.  Ceremonial  purification 
is  their  monopoly,  a  most  valuable  one  in  the  caste 
system.  They  are  the  "  Zadkiel's  Almanack," 
"Ready  Reckoner,"  "Everyman's  own  Law- 
yer," "Enquire  Within  for  Everything,"  and 
Encyclopedia  Britannica,  in  the  social  and  do- 
mestic life  of  the  Hindu.  When  in  doubt,  the 
Hindu  pays  a  Brahmin. 

The  warrior's  caste  has  fallen  on  evil  days  since 
the  Arms  Act  deprived  him  of  his  sword,  and  the 
Pax  Britannica  of  the  opportunity  to  use  it.  His 
occupation  is  gone,  for  only  a  fraction  of  him  can 
find  employment  in  the  native  armies.  But  he 


20  Indian  Life 

swirls  his  bamboo  staff,  so  to  speak,  tells  how  his 
ancestors  fought  in  the  good  old  days  of  foray  and 
rapine,  and  retains  a  fierce  way  of  twirling  his 
moustachios.  For  the  rest  he  has  degenerated 
into  an  agriculturist,  who  ekes  out  a  living  from 
the  soil.  It  is  a  sad  come-down  for  a  man  who 
was  a  famous  swashbuckler  and  fire-eater  in  his 
day. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  trading  caste  has  thriven 
under  the  dominion  of  a  nation  of  shopkeepers. 
Time  was  when,  like  the  Jews  in  England,  they 
knew  what  it  was  to  have  sound  teeth  extracted. 
They  keep  their  teeth  in  their  heads  now,  and  be- 
gin to  show  them.  Especially  the  money-lenders, 
who  are  a  distinct  power  in  the  land;  for  much  of 
it  is  mortgaged  to  them,  and  they  are  rack- renters, 
more  hated  than  absentee  landlords  in  Ireland. 
It  has  often  been  shrewdly  said  that  if  there  were 
another  rebellion  in  India  the  first  thing  to  be 
consigned  to  the  flames  would  be  the  books  and 
archives  of  the  usurers. 

As  for  the  labourer  he  is  whac  he  ever  was,  a 
mechanical,  patient,  ambitionless  toiler,  whom 
nor  conquests  nor  social  revolutions  can  put  out 
of  gear.  He  bows  his  head  and  bends  his  back 
and  struggles  along  in  the  old  groove,  using  the 
same  primitive  tools  as  his  ancestors  and  employ- 
ing the  same  crude  methods.  The  crusted  con- 
servatism of  this  caste  is  second  only  to  that  of 
the  Brahmins.  The  pride  of  the  priest  finds  its 
counterpoise  in  the  humility  of  the  proletariat, 


Caste  21 

and  between  them  they  demonstrate  the  maxi- 
mum degrees  of  dignity  and  degradation. 

The  Pariah  you  can  hardty  include  in  Hindu- 
ism, though  he  has  his  degrees.  He  dwindles  off 
into  the  scavenger,  who  is  merely  a  sanitary  ma- 
chine, performing  the  functions  of  a  drainpipe. 
And  yet,  absurd  though  it  may  appear,  the  Pariah 
pretends  to  have  a  caste  of  his  own,  and  is  quite 
pedantic  in  keeping  it,  and  cases  are  not  un- 
common where,  outcaste  himself,  he  proceeds  to 
"  outcaste  "  his  erring  brother!  The  species  thus 
arrived  at  is  something  lower  than  the  missing-link. 

All  these  castes  are  hereditary.  A  priest's  son 
is  a  priest;  a  soldier's  a  soldier;  a  carpenter's  a 
carpenter;  a  scavenger's  a  scavenger.  There  is  no 
question  of  "  What  shall  we  do  with  our  boys?  " 
in  Hinduism;  that  problem  has  been  solved  in  ad- 
vance for  two  thousand  years.  For  a  sire  to  start 
his  son  in  any  other  calling  but  his  own  would  be 
"  against  his  caste,"  and  there  all  argument  ends. 
For  caste  is  both  social  and  religious,  and  includes 
the  calling  as  well  as  the  creed. 

The  requirements  and  restrictions  of  caste  are 
innumerable.  Many  of  them  are  arbitrary,  in- 
consistent, and  even  contradictory.  The  princi- 
pal laws  direct  that  individuals  shall  marry  only 
tiiose  of  their  own  caste,  eat  with  their  own  caste, 
and  of  food  cooked  by  a  caste-fellow  or  a  Brah- 
min; that  no  superior  shall  allow  one  of  inferior 
caste  to  touch  his  cocked  food,  or  even  enter 
the  room  in  which  it  is  being  cooked;  but  articles 


22  Indian  Life 

of  a  dry  nature,  such  as  rice,  grain,  and  so  forth, 
are  exempt  from  defilement  by  touch  so  long  as 
they  remain  dry.  Water  and  other  liquids  are 
peculiarly  susceptible  to  contamination,  but  riv- 
ers, reservoirs,  and  ponds  are  excepted.  The 
higher  and  "clean"  castes  are  not  allowed  to 
touch  the  lower  or  outcastes;  even  the  brushing 
of  garments  in  passing  is  reckoned  defilement, 
and  the  shadow  of  the  inferior  is  considered  un- 
clean. There  are  several  prohibited  articles  of 
food,  such  as  the  flesh  of  kine,  swine,  and  fowls, 
the  eating  or  touching  of  which  entails  defilement. 
A  person  may  not  cross  the  ocean  or  any  of  the 
boundaries  of  India  without  being  outcasted. 
Marriage  with  a  widow  entails  similar  excom- 
munication, as  does  immorality  in  females.  The 
immoral  connections  of  men  are  not  visited  with 
retribution,  though  theoretically  reprobated.  Em- 
bracing Christianity  or  Mahomedanism  ip so  facto 
leads  to  exclusion  from  caste. 

The  punishment  of  being  outcasted  may  be  de- 
scribed as  a  blend  of  boycotting  and  ecclesiastical 
excommunication.  The  backslider's  friends  and 
relatives  refuse  to  partake  of  his  hospitality  or 
grant  him  theirs;  they  will  not  eat,  drink,  or 
smoke  with  him,  which  are  far  more  significant 
acts  than  as  comprehended  in  our  social  philo- 
sophy. They  decline  to  marry  his  children,  or 
give  him  theirs  in  marriage,  and  if  he  have  a  mar- 
ried daughter  she  is  debarred  from  visiting  him. 
Those  important  functionaries,  the  priest,  barber. 


Caste  23 

and  washerman,  refuse  to  serve  him.  All  con- 
nection with  him  is  completely  severed,  and  no 
one  will  assist  him  even  at  the  funeral  of  a  mem- 
ber of  his  family,  which,  in  a  land  where  there  are 
no  undertakers  and  no  hearses  even  for  the  richest, 
lands  him  in  a  parlous  predicament.  It  is  ab- 
solute social  ostracism. 

Reinstatement  in  caste  is  possible  in  most  cases 
after  going  through  a  ceremony  of  purification, 
which  consists  in  swallowing  a  mixture  com- 
pounded of  the  products  and  excrements  of  the 
cow,  feasting  an  assemblage  of  caste-brethren,  and 
feeing  the  Brahmins.  The  latter,  you  may  be 
sure,  are  always  to  the  fore,  and  their  services  are 
constantly  required  for  ceremonial  purification  to 
atone  for  slight  lapses  or  accidental  slips,  each  and 
every  one  of  which  needs  its  expiatory  procedure. 
The  cow  is  a  most  sacred  animal, — it  can  purge 
from  sin  and  lead  the  way  to  a  better  world. 
When  a  Hindu  is  dying,  he  is  always  lifted  from 
his  bed  and  laid  on  mother  earth,  and  in  many 
places,  the  tail  of  a  cow  is  guided  into  his  faltering 
grasp  that  it  may  pull  him  to  heaven.  There  was 
an  old  cow  on  my  plantation  in  India  that  had 
performed  this  serviceable  function  for  a  hundred 
moribund  coolies! 

I  have  called  caste  inconsistent  and  contradic- 
tory, and  here  are  a  few  illustrations.  A  caste 
which  is  accounted  "  clean  "  in  one  part  of  India 
may  be  held  contrariwise  in  another,  as  for  in- 
stance, the  potters;  the  Brahmins  and  Rajpoots  of 


24  Indian  Life 

Northern  India  eat  the  flesh  of  the  wild  pig  with- 
out sustaining  any  pollution,  though  such  an  act 
would  render  them  liable  to  the  severest  damna- 
tory penalties  in  Bengal.  The  eye  is  winked  at 
a  rich  Hindu  who  keeps  a  Mahomedan  mistress, 
which  would  undoubtedly  fix  him  with  utter  con- 
demnation did  he  marry  a  widow  of  his  own 
caste.  A  man  may  sit  on  his  fence  and  see  the 
land  ploughed,  and  urge  the  ploughman  to  goad 
the  learn,  as  he  often  does,  and  yet  may  not  plough 
himself,  because  that  entails  driving  the  bullocks, 
which  are  sacred  animals.  A  Brahmin  may  eat 
sweetmeats  or  wheat  with  men  of  the  warrior  or 
trading  castes,  but  not  rice,  for  that  is  supposed 
to  admit  equality.  He  may  blackmail  a  man  of 
the  labouring  caste  for  food  to  take  home  with 
him  to  cook,  but  must  on  no  account  eat  it  in  that 
individual's  house.  The  "clean  castes"  habit- 
ually wear  shoes  made  out  of  the  skins  of  cattle, 
yet  would  be  defiled  by  the  mere  touch  of  the  hide, 
or  of  the  tanner,  or  the  shoemaker  who  made  the 
shoes.  The  ' '  bearer ' '  or  valet  who  waits  upon 
an  English  master  is  often  of  the  highest  caste; 
he  may  make  the  bed,  prepare  the  bath,  and  at- 
tend to  all  the  personal  wants  of  his  Sahib,  but 
not  bring  him  his  food.  The  Hindu  who  tends 
your  cows  and  sheep  would  revolt  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  grooming  your  horse  or  giving  your  cham- 
pion-bred English  fox-terrier  a  bath.  The  former 
duty  is  the  function  of  a  low-caste  man,  whilst 
only  the  scavengers  may  deal  with  dogs,  which 


Caste  25 

are  held  to  be  but  one  degree  less  defiling  than 
swine.  Per  contra,  the  cat  is  sacred,  and  the 
monkey  holy.  I  suppose  there  is  no  filthier  coin 
in  the  whole  wide  world  than  the  India  copper 
anna.  It  is  often  greasy  with  the  foulest  dirt  and 
grimy  with  bits  of  sticky  tobacco,  into  whose  com- 
position treacle  enters  more  largely  than  rum  and 
molasses  into  naval  plugs.  But  it  is  cleaner  than 
the  low-caste  man  who  tenders  it,  notwithstand- 
ing he  may  be  a  washerman,  and  engaged  in 
his  avocation!  His  touch  defiles  the  Brahmin, 
but  the  copper  does  not.  Where  other  nations 
purify  buildings  with  a  coat  of  limewash,  the 
Hindu  plasters  them  with  cow-dung,  which  is  the 
universal  disinfectant  of  this  people  who  may  not 
sit  down  to  a  meal  without  a  preliminary  bath. 

But  the  exclusiveness  of  caste  extends  much 
further  than  this.  In  the  ordinary  transactions  of 
life,  when  money  passes  between  a  low-caste  and 
a  high-caste  man,  the  coin  is  thrown  on  the 
ground  by  the  one  and  picked  up  by  the  other  for 
fear  of  defilement;  they  may  not  stand  on  the 
same  carpet  or  enter  the  same  room.  The  low- 
caste  man  must  not  cross  the  threshold  of  his 
superior's  house  or  hut;  if  he  wants  to  attract  his 
attention,  or  communicate  with  him,  he  stands 
outside  and  bawls.  In  some  parts  of  India,  the 
sight  of  a  Brahmin  coming  down  the  highway 
used  to  be  the  signal  for  men  of  lesser  degree  to 
clear  off  it.  There  are  scores  of  these  unclean 
castes,  who  are,  however,  superior  to  Pariahs.  I 


26  Indian  Life 

may  instance  shoemakers,  tanners,  grooms, 
washermen,  publicans,  or  spirit-sellers  and  distil- 
lers, basket-makers,  weavers  (in  some  parts  held 
to  be  a  "clean"  caste),  gipsies,  and  several 
others.  No  high-caste  Hindu  is  safe  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  stranger  until  he  has  asked  him,  "  Who 
are  you  ? ' '  The  answer  places  them  at  once  in 
their  proper  social  relation  to  one  another,  for,  as 
I  have  said,  caste  is  the  one  thing  about  which  a 
native  of  India  will  not  lie. 

Conceive  the  shackles  this  imposes  upon  inter- 
course! What  would  life  be  if  we  had  to  consider 
of  every  person  we  met  in  the  streets,  "Is  he 
touchable  ?  "  of  every  man  we  sat  down  next  to 
in  a  restaurant,  "  Is  it  lawful  to  sit  at  meat  with 
him  ?  "  For  you  must  know  that  this  caste  preju- 
dice is  not  merely  disinclination  or  disgust,  but  an 
absolute  moral  law,  which  makes  transgression  an 
admitted  abomination.  It  is  as  though  a  draper 
by  accepting  an  invitation  to  dinner  from  a  boot- 
maker laid  himself  open  to  expulsion  from  his 
chapel,  and  social  ostracism  by  his  brother  drap- 
ers, whilst,  if  he  fell  in  love  with  the  bootmaker's 
lovely  daughter  auu  married  her,  his  lot  must  be 
eternal  exclusion  from  the  draper's  paradise.  Lo- 
cate those  tradesmen  in  India,  and  I  assure  you 
that  is  what  would  happen.  If,  under  similar 
conditions,  one  can  conceive  a  bishop  marrying  a 
major- general's  daughter,  he  would  infallibly  lose 
his  bishopric  and  be  boycotted. 

Caste  is  respected  in  the  jails  of  India,  where 


Caste  27 

the  prisoners  of  high  caste  are  provided  with  their 
own  cooks  and  water-carriers.  The  Brahmin 
felon  has  every  respect  paid  to  his  prejudices,  but 
— and  this  is  where  the  rub  comes  in — when  you 
get  to  the  third-class  railway  carriage  you  over- 
ride even  such  a  tough  obstacle  as  caste.  Into  it 
are  bundled  Brahmin  and  Pariah;  they  sit  on  the 
same  seat;  they  rub  shoulders  who  might  not 
mingle  shadows.  "  You  must  drop  your  caste," 
says  the  railway,  "  if  you  want  to  travel  at  a  far- 
thing a  mile  ";  and  it  is  dropped — to  be  resumed 
again  outside  the  station. 

The  Hindu  cannot  change  his  caste,  though  he 
may  be  expelled  from  it;  his  social  status  is  fixed 
for  ever  at  his  birth,  and  he  can  only  fall,  never 
rise.  Wealth  cannot  affect  it,  and  this  has  tended 
to  make  the  Hindus  an  ambitionless  race.  Nor 
can  poverty  derogate.  There  are  hosts  of  Brah- 
min beggars  who,  not  even  in  the  extremity  of 
starvation,  would  feed  at  the  same  table  with  some 
of  the  greatest  princes,  who,  although  they  may 
rule  over  great  territories,  are  by  the  standard 
of  caste  unclean.  As  you  may  find  a  swineherd 
dynasty  in  Europe,  so  in  Hindustan  there  are 
ruling  chiefs  who  are  no  more  gentlefolk  by 
birthright  than  the  English  would  consider  pub- 
licans and  grooms  to  be.  But  whereas  in  the 
West  it  is  possible  for  these  to  emerge  from  their 
low  degree,  in  the  East  they  are  ever  fettered  to  it 
by  the  chain  of  caste. 

I  have  known  only  one  instance  of  a  Hindu 


28  Indian  Life 

trying  to  emancipate  himself  from  caste.  It  was 
the  case  of  a  Rajah,  who  was  a  member  of  one  of 
those  low  castes  which  are  held  to  be  unclean  in  a 
minor  degree.  He  expended  untold  wealth  in 
purchasing  a  beggar  girl  of  high  caste,  and  brib- 
ing her  relatives  and  the  Brahmins  to  sanction 
and  perform  a  marriage  ceremony  between  them. 
When  she  had  become  his  wife,  literally  trans- 
lated from  the  hut  to  the  palace,  and  borne  him  a 
son,  his  courtiers  put  forward  the  claim  that  the 
son  was  of  the  same  caste  as  his  mother,  and  that 
as  the  Rajah  had  a  high-caste  son  and  a  high- 
caste  wife,  he  must  be  a  high  caste  himself.  It 
was  a  piece  of  impudent  and  shallow  pleading  that 
imposed  on  nobody,  and  created  a  great  scandal, 
because  it  was  done  with  the  connivance  of  Brit- 
ish officials.  "  This  could  never  have  happened 
under  the  rule  of  our  own  Rajahs,"  complained 
the  caste  that  had  been  dishonoured;  for  caste  is 
accounted  a  brotherhood,  and  a  slur  of  that  sort 
affected  every  member  of  it.  Amongst  men  of 
the  same  caste  the  appellation  "  brother"  is  uni- 
versal. And  in  this  case,  the  whole  caste,  which 
happened  to  be  a  small  one,  was  subjected  to 
much  taunt  and  insolence  for  the  backsliding  of 
the  few  recreants  who  had  been  bribed  to  give 
their  assent  to  the  mesalliance.  "  Brother-in-law 
of  a  publican!  "  was  the  favourite  form  of  abuse; 
a  publican  being  an  "untouchable"  man,  and 
"brother-in-law"  capable  of  a  peculiarly  offen- 
sive and  insulting  undermeaning.  The  Rajah 


Caste  29 

still  hugs  the  delusion,  fostered  by  his  fawning 
and  sycophantic  courtiers,  that  he  has  ascended 
into  the  higher  scale;  but  outside  his  palace  there 
is  not  a  man  of  high  caste  that  would  accept  a 
drink  of  water  from  his  hands. 

Caste  is  as  strict  and  particular  in  its  alliances 
as  Royalty.  It  admits  of  no  intermarriage,  and 
as,  in  practice,  every  Hindu  is  married,  this  hard 
and  fast  rule  bears  on  the  whole  population.  The 
obligation  to  see  his  children  married  is  a  matter 
which  presses  harder  on  the  native  than  anything 
else.  In  the  first  place,  it  costs  a  great  deal  of 
money,  and  often  keeps  the  parents  impoverished 
for  years.  In  some  of  the  castes,  large  sums  have 
to  be  paid  to  the  bridegroom  for  his  condescen- 
sion; in  other  castes,  chiefly  the  lower  ones,  wives 
have  to  be  purchased.  There  are  Kulin  Brahmins 
who  make  a  livelihood  by  matrimony,  scores  of 
damsels  being  wedded  to  them  for  their  sanctity's 
sake,  as  unattractive  widows  were  sometimes 
sealed  to  Mormon  elders.  With  the  consumma- 
tion of  the  marriage,  the  attentions  of  the  husband 
cease,  and  the  bride  resides  in  her  father's  house 
permanently.  In  the  Rajpoot,  which  is  the  lead- 
ing warrior  caste,  it  is  necessary  for  the  girls  to 
marry  into  a  grade  or  section  higher  than  their 
father's.  When  you  get  to  the  top  of  this  tree 
you  will  find  thousands  of  spinsters  for  whom 
there  are  literally  no  husbands  available.  To 
have  an  unmarried  daughter  after  she  has  reached 
Vhe  age  of  puberty  is  worse  than  a  disgrace,  it  is 


30  Indian  Life 

a  crime  in  the  morality  of  the  Hindus.  Where 
the  wives  have  to  be  purchased,  the  price  often 
approximates  two  or  three  years'  income  of  the 
bridegroom's  father.  India  is  a  land  of  universal 
indebtedness,  and  the  greater  portion  of  the  lia- 
bility is  incurred  in  fulfilling  the  obligation  of  the 
customs  relating  to  marriage. 

Within  the  last  thirty  years,  caste  has  received 
many  rude  jars,  and  is  much  less  strictly  observed 
in  the  centres  which  Western  civilisation  has 
pierced.  Railways,  tramways,  schools,  dispen- 
saries, and  similar  institutions,  which  are  open  to 
all,  have  had  a  great  levelling  effect.  In  the  met- 
ropolitan cities,  liberalism  has  advanced  by  strides. 
The  water  supply  of  Calcutta  brought  the  Hindu 
face  to  face  with  one  of  the  cardinal  articles  of  his 
creed,  which  prohibited  him  from  using  any  water 
drawn  from  a  source  touched,  and  hence  polluted, 
by  outcastes.  The  Brahmins  were  equal  to  the 
occasion,  and  a  special  dispensation  was  granted, 
though  the  ordinances  of  caste  were  manifestly 
violated.  With  the  spread  of  education  and  the 
establishment  of  schools,  the  same  question  pre- 
sented itself  in  a  less  acute  form,  and  the  high 
castes  swallowed  their  pride  and  sent  their  sons  to 
learn  in  the  same  schoolroom  as  their  inferiors. 
Even  in  the  jungles,  a  subtle  change  is  creeping 
in.  I  have  observed,  in  my  own  experience,  in  a 
district  situated  seventy  miles  from  the  nearest 
railway,  a  distinct  diminution  of  caste  prejudice. 
Here  are  three  straws  of  illustration  showing 


Caste  31 

which  way  the  wind  blows;  I  remember  them  be- 
cause by  a  coincidence  the  first  scene  in  each  hap- 
pened on  the  same  day  and  drew  from  me  some 
rather  impatient  observations  about  caste.  It  was 
in  the  'seventies,  and  I  was  out  snipe-shooting, 
and,  having  taken  off  my  wet  boots,  ordered  one 
of  my  coolies  to  carry  them;  he  refused  point 
blank,  because  it  was  against  his  caste.  A  little 
later,  I  asked  another  to  hand  me  a  flask  of  whisky 
from  my  tiffin-basket;  he  called  to  the  groom  (a 
low-caste  man)  to  do  so,  on  the  plea  that  he  would 
break  his  caste  by  touching  anything  so  unclean 
as  Glenlivet.  On  my  retwrn  home,  a  third  man 
asked  me  for  some  quinine  to  cure  his  fever;  I 
mixed  him  a  dose  with  water,  whereat  he  shook 
his  head  and  declined  anything  except  the  dry 
powder.  In  the  'nineties,  No.  i,  who  had  blos- 
somed into  my  bearer,  had  special  charge  of  my 
boots.  He  was  a  Mian,  or  Rajpoot  nobleman  by 
caste,  and  the  other  servants  used  habitually  to 
address  him  as  "  My  L,ord,"  and  touch  his  feet 
with  their  hands  before  salaaming  to  him  as  a 
mark  of  extra  respect.  No.  2  had  so  far  overcome 
his  prejudices  that  I  caught  him  drinking  my 
whisky.  And  as  for  No.  3  and  the  "  dry  "  medi- 
cine theory,  all  objections  to  potions  had  ceased 
long  before  that  decade,  and  rum  and  chloradyne 
had  become  a  really  popular  dram! 

As  instances  of  the  advance  of  civilisation  and 
the  surrender  of  caste  prejudices,  I  will  particu- 
larise four  other  things  which  have  become  fairly 


32  Indian  Life 

popular  in  India,  at  any  rate  where  the  line  of  rail 
runs  and  the  inhabitants  are  not  in  jungle  dark- 
ness. They  are,  soda-water,  ice,  umbrellas,  and 
kerosene-oil  lamps.  At  the  first  blush,  they  may 
appear  absurd  illustrations,  but  more  lies  behind 
them  than  is  apparent  on  the  surface.  Soda- 
water  has  always  been  regarded  as  an  English 
drink;  its  vernacular  name  is  "  English  water," 
and  that  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  condemn  it 
in  the  eyes  of  caste.  And  yet  you  may  see  it 
hawked  about  the  streets  and  railway  stations 
and  sold  in  the  bazaars.  This  betokens  a  revolu- 
tion in  religious  sentiment,  for  the  typhoid  germs 
which  Western  nations  believe  to  lurk  in  foul 
water  are  not  so  dreaded  as  the  spiritual  pollution 
the  pious  Hindu  conceives  he  must  be  subjected 
to  by  the  use  of  the  purest,  ay,  of  distilled,  water, 
touched  by  a  Christian.  In  the  same  way  with 
ice,  essentially  an  English  luxury,  and  utterly 
foreign  to  the  native  of  India.  There  are  ice- 
factories  in  most  of  the  large  towns  in  the  country, 
and  you  may  often  see  an  Aryan  brother  sucking 
away  at  his  farthing's  worth  quite  complacently. 
It  is  a  luxury  that  has  entered  into  native  life 
within  the  last  few  years,  as  the  tomato  and  ban- 
ana have  in  the  West.  But  whilst  such  innova- 
tions mean  nothing  to  the  Anglo-Saxon,  except 
an  increase  of  his  blessings,  they  imply  the  snap- 
ping of  another  link  in  the  fetters  of  caste.  My 
bearer  aforesaid,  who  declined  the  boots,  came  in 
after  years  habitually  to  pilfer  my  snow,  in  which 


Caste  33 

were  laid  to  cool  such  abominations  as  tinned 
brawn  made  of  calves'  heads,  the  very  mention  of 
which  would  have  sent  him  flying  to  holy  Gunga 
twenty  years  before.  (And  I  may  here  paren- 
thetically mention  that  in  the  hill  district  in  which 
I  lived,  on  the  slopes  of  the  Himalayas,  I  was  al- 
ways able  to  get  a  load  of  snow  down  from  the 
mountains,  even  in  the  hottest  weather,  though 
the  mercury  might  register  103  degrees  in  my 
verandah!) 

With  regard  to  umbrellas,  thereby  hangs  an- 
other tale.  The  umbrella  was  as  great  a  sign  of 
presumed  gentility  in  India  as  a  silk  hat  and  pair 
of  gloves  in  London.  When  I  first  went  to  India, 
thirty  years  ago,  a  rising  native  thought  twice  be- 
fore committing  himself  to  the  responsibilities  of 
carrying  an  umbrella,  and  it  was  the  etiquette  to 
furl  it  in  the  presence  of  a  superior.  I  have  seen 
old  Anglo-Indians  of  the  pre- Mutiny  period  al- 
most go  into  a  fit  because  in  passing  strange  na- 
tives on  the  high-road  they  were  not  complimented 
with  the  umbrella  respectfully  lowered.  But  in 
those  days  umbrellas  were  costly  articles :  in  these 
they  are  turned  out  at  a  price  which  enables  them 
to  be  sold  by  the  million  at  something  under  a 
shilling.  The  consequence  is  that  a  remarkable 
demand  has  sprung  up  for  them,  and  you  will  see  a 
man,  whose  sole  raiment  is  a  bit  of  cloth  wrapped 
about  his  loins,  swaggering  about  under  the  shade 
of  a  chuttree.  As  for  putting  it  down  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  superior,  that  is  a  piece  of  politeness 


34  Indian  Life 

which  has  quite  passed  out  of  vogue.  I  can  only 
compare  the  social  elevation  this  implies  to,  let 
me  say,  artisans  in  England  taking  to  driving 
in  hansom  cabs  because,  by  some  unexplained 
process,  they  plied  at  penny  fares.  Even  that 
would  hardly  meet  the  case,  for  whereas,  riding 
in  a  hansom  is  not  forbidden  to  the  proletariat, 
the  carrying  of  an  umbrella  would  have  been  con- 
sidered a  piece  of  public  impertinence  twenty  years 
ago  on  the  part  of  the  great  majority  of  natives, 
who  now  habitually  sport  them  under  the  stimulus 
of  Western  cheapness  of  production.  The  sub- 
jection insisted  on  by  caste  is  chronically  flaunted 
by  the  display,  by  the  lower  orders  of  India,  of 
what  is,  really,  an  insignia  of  respectability. 

Lastly,  we  come  to  mineral-oil  lamps.  In  an 
age  when  artificial  illumination  has  been  brought 
to  a  high  stage  of  perfection,  we  are  apt  to  forget 
what  a  civilising  agent  gas  was  in  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  how  it  revolution- 
ised social  life.  India  has  for  countless  ages  been 
content  with  the  dim  gloom,  after  nightfall,  pro- 
vided by  a  cotton  wick,  burning  in  an  open  dish 
of  vegetable  oil;  a  smelling,  smoking  flame,  only 
one  degree  better  than  the  tallow  candles  by  the 
light  of  which  the  English,  less  than  a  century 
ago,  were  accustomed  to  illuminate  their  houses. 
The  introduction  of  the  kerosene-oil  lamp,  with 
its  glass  chimney  (invariably  made  in  Germany), 
into  the  bazaars  of  the  East  is  the  thin  end  of  that 
wedge  which  betokens  that  sunset  shall  no  longer 


Caste 


35 


be  the  practical  limit  of  the  working-day,  and 
promises  to  open  extended  hours  of  labour  and 
recreation  to  the  teeming  millions  of  India,  to 
whom,  hitherto,  night  has  meant  idleness  or 
gossip.  But  this  is  rather  an  innovation  of  cus- 
tom than  of  caste,  and  of  custom  I  shall  deal  more 
particularly  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  III 

MANNERS   AND   CUSTOMS 

MANY  hundreds  of  volumes  have  been  written 
descriptive  of  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  peo- 
ples of  India,  whose  civilisation  is  a  compound  of 
unpleasant  manners  and  incomprehensible  cus- 
toms, as  judged  by  Western  standards,  and  pre- 
sents to  the  English  mind  a  source  of  perpetual 
bewilderment.  Open-mouthed  wonder  is  the  per- 
manent attitude  for  many  months  of  the  new 
arrival  in  that  strange  country.  To  attempt  any 
regular  and  ordered  survey  of  the  subject  within 
the  limits  of  a  chapter  would  be  like  trying  to 
enumerate  the  streets  of  L,ondon  on  the  back  of  a 
visiting  card.  In  default,  I  propose  to  jog  the 
kaleidoscope  of  my  recollection  and  present  the 
result  in  the  hope  that  chance  may  flash  a  more 
graphic  suggestion  here  and  there  than  I  could 
accomplish  by  any  attempt  at  a  nutshell  catalogue 
of  the  subject. 

India  is  a  country  where  the  climate  takes  the 

place  of  the  costumier,  and  the  population  goes 

unclad.     This  is  the  first  thing  that  arrests  the 

Western  eye,  with  its  suggestion  of  indescribable 

36 


Manners  and  Customs          37 

indelicacy,  where  the  ordinary  dress  of  a  man  ap- 
proximates a  pair  of  bathing-drawers,  and  the 
women  veil  their  faces  and  display  their  legs. 

It  is  a  country  where  politeness  requires  the 
feet  to  be  naked,  but  the  head  covered  on  entering 
a  room,  a  bare  poll  being  a  sign  of  self-abasement, 
and  his  turban  as  necessar}'  to  the  native's  sense 
of  respect  as  a  pair  of  breeches  to  an  Englishman. 
Take  a  native  unawares  with  \nspuggarie  off,  and 
the  first  thing  he  does  is  to  adjust  it  hurriedly. 
Catch  a  native  woman  en  dhhabilti,  and  she  cares 
for  nothing  except  to  veil  her  face. 

It  is  a  country  where  everybody  habitually  sits 
on  the  ground  and  eats  off  the  floor,  and  throws 
away  the  food  that  cannot  be  eaten  at  a  meal,  and 
often  the  crockery  ware  after  once  using  it;  where 
it  is  forbidden  to  eat  with  the  shoes  on,  and  cus- 
tomary, in  not  a  few  castes,  to  strip  naked  for 
dinner;  where  three  men  out  of  four  consider  beef- 
eating  worse  than  cannibalism;  and  the  fourth 
is  morally  convinced  that  a  ham-sandwich  could 
send  him  to  hell;  where  vegetarianism  is  the  rule, 
and  never  an  egg  is  used  in  cooking;  where  there 
are  a  hundred  sweetmeat  shops  to  one  public- 
house,  and  a  native  restaurant  is  an  absolutely 
unknown  thing;  where  every  one  smokes,  but  the 
same  pipe  travels  from  mouth  to  mouth;  where 
every  one  washes,  but  no  one  uses  soap;  where 
not  one  man  in  ten,  and  not  one  woman  in  a 
hundred  and  fifty,  can  read. 

A  country  where  boys  are  husbands  before  they 


38  Indian  Life 

have  shed  their  baby  teeth,  and  brides  are  mar- 
ried in  their  cradles  occasionally;  where  there  are 
no  unmarried  girls  under  fourteen,  and  many 
widows  of  half  that  age;  where  there  is  no  court- 
ing before  marriage,  and  a  husband  may  not  no- 
tice his  wife  in  public,  nor  a  wife  so  much  as 
pronounce  her  husband's  name;  where  husbands 
and  wives  cannot  travel  in  the  same  railway  car- 
riage third-class;  where  you  never  see  a  "  lady  " 
in  the  streets,  and  to  address  one  would  be  con- 
sidered a  gross  insult. 

A  country  where  more  men  shave  their  heads 
than  their  chins,  and  widows  are  compelled  to  go 
bald  (though  in  this  conjunction  we  may  recall  to 
mind  that  less  than  a  hundred  years  ago  widowed 
ladies  in  England  customarily  had  their  heads 
shaved,  and  wore  wigs  in  order  to  supply  the  de- 
ficiency); where  wives  wear  a  nose-ring  in  token 
of  being  in  a  state  of  subjection  to  their  husbands; 
where  there  is  sorrow  over  a  daughter's  birth,  and 
rejoicing,  or  at  least  satisfaction,  over  a  widow's 
death;  where  a  man  may  have  four  legal  wives, 
and,  in  some  castes,  a  woman  four  legal  husbands, 
if  they  are  brothers. 

A  country  where  venomous  snakes  kill  thou- 
sands of  human  beings  annually,  and  yet  are 
venerated;  where  the  powdered  liver  of  a  tiger  is 
a  specific  to  instil  courage;  where  the  tails  and 
manes  of  white  horses  are  painted  pink  to  im- 
prove their  appearance,  and  a  wall-eyed  brute 
is  considered  peculiarly  beautiful;  where  most 


Manners  and  Customs          39 

wheeled  vehicles  are  drawn  by  bullocks,  and  no 
other  animals  used  for  ploughing;  where  many 
people  keep  goats,  and  very  few  poultry,  and  no 
one  keeps  a  dog. 

A  country  which  has  no  Sunday  observance; 
no  poor-houses,  poor-rates,  or  poor-law;  no  places 
of  entertainment  or  national  pastimes  ;  no  public 
institutions  except  temples  and  mosques;  no  pub- 
lic opinion;  no  political  privileges;  no  representa- 
tion, and  no  Members  of  Parliament. 

A  country  where  beggars  are  accounted  holy, 
and  ' '  ballet  girls ' '  of  loose  morals  held  in  high 
esteem;  where  the  priests  countenance  prostitu- 
tion, and  often  live  on  its  proceeds;  where  incon- 
tinence is  not  held  to  be  a  vice  in  married  men, 
and  religion  teaches  its  votaries  to  hate,  despise, 
and  grind  down  their  less  fortunate  neighbours; 
where  equality  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  is  unknown, 
and  the  killing  of  some  human  beings  is  accounted 
a  far  less  serious  crime  than  the  slaughter  of  a 
cow;  where  women  are  treated  as  creatures  born 
for  the  gratification  of  man,  and  "  a  man's  a  man 
fora'  that." 

This  sample  is  like  a  handful  drawn  at  chance 
from  a  sack  of  wheat,  but  each  grain  is  a  solid 
fact,  and  there  are  thousands  more  like  them. 
Wherefore  I  say  that  the  attitude  of  the  new  ar- 
rival in  making  himself  acquainted  with  India  is 
one  of  open-mouthed  wonder,  not  unfrequently 
stiffened  with  a  strong  dash  of  disgust. 

And  now  a  few  words  of  general  description  of 


40  Indian  Life 

the  people  who  adopt  these  manners  and  customs. 
The  Hindu  first.  Patience  and  thrift  are  his  pre- 
dominant virtues,  instilled  into  him  in  the  hard 
school  of  subjection,  long-suffering,  and  poverty. 
He  is  docile  to  servility,  especially  when  anything 
is  to  be  gained  by  it.  Except  in  the  lower  castes, 
he  is  sobriety  typified,  and,  indeed,  by  far  the 
major  part  of  the  population  of  India  is  qualified 
to  wear  the  blue  ribbon  of  temperance.  He  has 
industry  of  a  sort  that  is  not  very  energetic,  for  he 
distinctly  dislikes  physical  exertion,  and  none  of 
his  few  recreations  comprehend  bodily  exercise. 
Sleeping,  smoking,  and  eating  sweetmeats  would 
enable  him  to  get  through  an  ideal  bank  holiday. 
He  cannot  be  commended  as  a  husband,  for  cus- 
tom makes  him  barbarous  and  discourteous  from 
a  Western  point  of  view,  but  he  is  an  affectionate 
father.  On  the  other  hand,  he  is  narrow-minded, 
parsimonious,  and  avaricious;  cheats  and  lies  by 
the  light  of  nature;  and  the  word  "money"  is 
assuredly  more  often  on  his  lips  than  any  other  in 
his  vocabulary.  He  is  cunning  and  contentious 
in  argument,  and  his  intellectual  powers,  when 
educated,  are  capable  of  considerable  development. 
In  this  respect  he  puts  the  Englishman  to  shame, 
and  were  all  posts  in  the  Indian  Government 
thrown  open  to  examination  in  India,  we  should 
probably  see  the  administration  filled  with  Ben- 
gali Baboos  and  Mahratta  Brahmins.  The  grati- 
tude of  the  Hindu  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  his  greed, 
and  his  proverbial  mildness  prevents  any  manli- 


Manners  and  Customs          41 

ness.  Although  he  worships  a  variety  of  animals, 
the  meaning  of  cruelty  to  them  is  outside  his  com- 
prehension. The  Indian  ox,  which  is  sacred  in 
theory,  is  perhaps  the  most  ill-used  and  over- 
worked beast  of  servitude  in  the  world.  The 
Hindu  is  callous  of  suffering,  to  the  point  of  want- 
ing to  make  you  kick  him.  He  will  not  take  life, 
but  he  will  watch  it,  unmoved,  dying  by  inches 
in  agony. 

The  Mahomedan  is  a  far  more  virile  personality 
than  the  Hindu.  He  is  free  from  the  cramping 
influence  of  caste,  but  his  bigotry  makes  up  for 
it.  He  has  been  termed  "  devout,"  but  I  think 
he  gets  his  religion  by  gusts,  which  often  lead  to 
fanaticism.  The  self-imposed  Lenten  penances  of 
the  Catholic  faith  fade  into  triviality  compared 
with  the  way  in  which  the  majority  of  Mahomed- 
ans  mortify  the  flesh  during  the  month  of  fasting, 
when  not  a  particle  of  food,  drink,  or  smoke  passes 
their  lips  between  sunrise  and  sunset.  The  Ma- 
homedan is  manly  and  proud  on  the  one  hand, 
and  indolent  and  dissipated  on  the  other.  He  is 
a  spendthrift  when  he  has  money  to  squander, 
and  in  this  respect  compares  with  a  Hindu  as  an 
Irishman  with  a  Scotchman.  The  descendant  of 
a  conquering  race,  and  the  inheritor  of  a  great 
history,  he  has  something  of  the  Spaniard  in  him, 
and  lives  more  in  the  traditions  of  the  past  than 
in  the  achievements  of  the  present.  At  times, 
when  he  sees  his  opportunity,  he  is  turbulent  and 
disorderly.  His  fortunes  have  fallen  low  under 


42  Indian  Life 

British  rule,  and  he  is  impatient  of  the  fact.  The 
British  eye  him  with  suspicion,  and  they,  "Kafirs" 
in  his  esteem,  keep  him  down  on  the  same  low 
level  as  the  Hindu  unbelievers,  whom,  in  his 
secret  soul,  he  despises  only  one  degree  more  than 
he  does  them.  Here  and  there,  where  he  takes  to 
trade,  the  Mahomedan  thrives,  but  he  lacks  the 
patience  and  thrift  of  the  Hindu,  and  commerce 
is  foreign  to  his  genius.  Intellectually  he  is  on  a 
lower  scale  than  the  Aryan,  but  his  unbounded 
self-esteem  enables  him  to  carry  his  head  higher, 
and  gain  some  advantage  from  his  competitor. 
He  is  a  tyrannical  husband,  a  doting  father,  and 
can  be  socially  a  very  good  fellow  if  he  likes,  dis- 
playing courtesy  and  frankness  of  character.  But 
he  is  a  decaying  influence  in  the  land,  and  no- 
thing short  of  a  miracle  can  restore  him  to  his 
former  pedestal.  In  the  economy  of  government, 
he  supplies  a  useful  counterbalance  to  the  aspir- 
ing Hindu  races,  who,  having  once  experienced 
his  yoke,  are  not  likely  to  invite  it  again.  Be- 
tween Mahomedan  and  Hindu  there  lurks  an  an- 
tipat)  y  too  deep-rooted  ever  to  be  eradicated,  and, 
in  their  mutual  hatred  and  distrust,  we  honest  men 
continue  to  hold  by  our  own  with  tolerable  ease. 

The  Sikhs  are  a  provincial  folk,  yet  free  from 
provincialism  in  the  sense  of  being  small-minded. 
Amongst  all  the  native  races  they  stand  out  as 
liberal-minded  and  capital  citizens.  There  is  a 
nobility  about  their  national  character  which  you 
seek  for  in  vain  amongst  Mahomedan  and  Hindu, 


Manners  and  Customs          43 

and  as  soldiers  they  are  drawn  more  closely  to- 
wards their  British  officers  than  any  other  of  the 
fighting  races.  Their  physical  development  is 
superb,  and  they  are  a  sober  and  industrious  folk. 
Two  of  their  peculiarities  may  be  mentioned;  the 
men  never  cut  their  hair,  and,  when  uncoiled,  you 
may  see  it  stretching  almost  to  their  knees,  and  in 
a  country  where  tobacco  smoking  is  universal, 
they  abjure  the  habit.  There  is  a  quiet  and  inde- 
pendent dignity  about  them  which  seems  to  place 
them  on  a  higher  level  than  other  brown  races; 
but  in  their  practical  treatment  of  their  women 
they  fall  behind  the  high  standard  of  their  general 
creed. 

Of  the  Burmese,  it  may  be  reckoned  to  his 
especial  credit  that  he  allows  his  women  liberty, 
both  in  the  ordering  of  their  lives  and  in  the 
selection  of  their  husbands.  In  the  all-important 
point  of  the  equality  of  sex,  the  Buddhist  religion 
is  the  only  one  that  approaches  Christianity  in  its 
liberalism.  The  subjection  of  woman  in  Mahom- 
edanism  and  her  degradation  in  Hinduism  reveal 
the  true  characters  of  the  races  which,  in  denying 
the  spiritual  equality  of  the  weaker  sex,  display 
their  baser  manhood.  Of  the  aboriginal  tribes 
of  India,  it  need  only  be  said  that  they  are  true 
children  of  the  forests,  mountains,  and  deserts, 
and  you  find  in  them  some  of  those  virtues,  not- 
ably truthfulness  and  candour,  in  which  the 
higher  civilised  Hindu  is  sadly  deficient.  They 
are  a  primitive  people,  and  some  of  them  in  the 


44  Indian  Life 

remoter  parts  decidedly  deserve  the  appellation  of 
"  savages." 

Passing  now  from  manners  and  customs  in  the 
concrete,  and  the  people  to  whom  they  are  pe- 
culiar, we  come  to  the  consideration  of  "  custom  " 
in  its  abstract  sense,  and  its  distinct  characteristic 
as  the  guide  of  life  in  India.  "  Custom,"  an  ad- 
vanced Hindu  reformer  has  declared,  "  is  a  god 
whom  our  race  devoutly  worship;  it  is  our  re- 
ligion." You  may  go  further,  and  say  it  is  the 
religion  of  all  India,  where  the  lex  non  scripta  can 
overrule  the  lex  scripta.  The  British  Govern- 
ment, apt  to  be  a  little  brusque  and  overbearing  in 
its  financial  legislation,  cries  canny  and  is  most 
considerate  of  custom.  There  are  customs  in  In- 
dia the  law  dare  not  touch  which  would  be  con- 
sidered criminal  in  England.  The  word  is  one  to 
conjure  and  defy  with.  When,  recently  it  was 
sought  to  diminish  plague  infection  by  house  to 
house  inspection,  custom  got  its  back  up  and  the 
Government  was  obliged  to  cave  in.  In  the 
statute  book  are  laws  quite  inoperative  because 
they  are  opposed  to  custom. 

Dustoor  hai  ("  It  is  the  custom")! — The  in- 
quiring soul  who  sets  about  asking  questions  in 
India  will  save  himself  much  time  if  he  stereo- 
types that  reply  in  his  mind  at  the  start.  For  it 
is  the  one  he  will  have  to  content  himself  with  in 
the  majority  of  his  investigations. 

Custom  is  the  child  of  caste;  in  many  cases,  it  is 
begotten  of  it,  and  inherits  its  narrowing  influence 


Manners  and  Customs          45 

on  the  national  character.  It  is  easy  to  perceive 
that  the  general  life  will  run  in  a  groove  when  the 
limit  of  a  man's  aspirations  is  determined  by  the 
obligation  to  follow  his  father's  calling,  and  his 
ambition  to  improve  his  social  status  is  rendered 
impossible  by  the  accident  of  his  birth.  The 
caste  system  is  a  very  jealous  and  obstinate  one, 
and  as  iron  when  you  attempt  to  bend  it.  It  will 
admit  no  infusion  of  nexv  blood,  and  when  the 
same  exclusive  spirit  is  imported  into  the  ordinary 
dealings  of  life,  you  arrive  at  that  stagnant  con- 
servatism which  is  called  Custom  in  the  East. 

Caste  is  restricted  to  the  Hindus,  but  custom  is 
universal.  In  many  cases,  it  has  almost  con- 
structed itself  into  caste  amongst  non-Hindu 
races.  There  is  a  tendency  to  follow  hereditary 
callings.  In  parts  of  the  Punjab,  the  work  of  ex- 
pressing oil  is  practically  a  monopoly  of  the  Ma- 
homedans;  it  has  almost  come  to  be  regarded  as 
their  caste,  and  they  are  put  down  in  the  census- 
returns  as  "  oil-pressers."  To  tell  you  a  man  is 
an  oil-presser  is  equivalent  to  informing  you  he 
is  a  Mahomedan.  The  same  with  silk-weavers. 
There  are  some  forms  of  employment  a  Hindu 
may  not  follow  because  it  infringes  some  law  of 
his  caste,  and  these  are  in  consequence  undertaken 
by  other  races,  and  custom  soon  makes  them  pre- 
scriptive. Moreover,  there  is  a  certain  unavoid- 
able contagion  in  caste  when  you  live  in  a  country 
where  three  fourths  of  the  inhabitants  profess  it. 
You  do  not  ask  a  Mahomedan  what  his  race  or 


46  Indian  Life 

profession  of  faith  is,  but  what  is  his  caste  ?  In 
the  census  returns  you  fill  in  your  own  caste  as 
"  Christian."  It  is  the  custom.  You  talk  of  a 
high-caste  Arab  horse,  a  dog  with  no  caste  at  all, 
a  tea-plant  of  very  decent  caste. 

Custom  in  India  frequently  overrules  common- 
sense  in  material  matters,  and  imposes  an  insuper- 
able impediment  on  improvement.  Look  at  the 
Indian  peasant's  plough.  The  overwhelming  ma- 
jority of  the  inhabitants  of  India  are  dependent 
on  the  land,  and  their  crops  would  be  much  in- 
creased by  better  methods  of  cultivation.  The 
plough  in  use  is  an  implement  which  merely 
scratches  the  surface  of  the  earth;  an  heirloom 
from  remotest  antiquity.  A  new  plough  was  in- 
troduced by  an  enterprising  firm  of  manufacturers, 
and  lent  free  for  trial  broadcast  over  a  province. 
It  admittedly  did  the  work  more  thoroughly,  and 
was  offered  at  a  price  within  the  peasant's  means. 
But  it  did  not  "  catch  on."  Why?  Simply  be- 
cause  the  ploughman  could  not  get  at  his  bullocks' 
tails  to  twist  them.  The  superior  tillage,  the  in- 
crease of  crop,  could  not  compensate  for  the  re- 
linquishment  of  this  time-honoured  custom.  The 
antediluvian  plough  still  holds  the  field,  and  the 
system  of  cultivation  is  the  same  as  it  was  in 
the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great. 

There  is  a  story,  well  enough  known  in  India, 
of  a  contractor  engaged  in  a  railway  excavation, 
who  recognised  that  the  soil  could  be  far  more  ex- 
peditiously  removed  in  wheelbarrows  than  carried 


Manners  and  Customs          47 

away  in  baskets  on  the  heads  of  coolies.  So  he 
invested  in  some,  and  showed  how  they  were  to 
be  trundled,  and  flattered  himself  upon  having  in- 
troduced a  useful  reform.  But  that  sanguine  re- 
former did  not  know  his  India.  The  next  time 
he  visited  his  works,  he  found  his  men  filling  the 
wheelbarrows  with  pinches  of  dust,  and  carrying 
them  away  on  their  heads. 

The  paraphernalia  of  Indian  daily  life  all  be- 
longs to  the  barbarous  ages.  Observe  any  article 
of  familiar  use  and  you  will  find  it  primitive  to  a 
degree  that  strikes  the  Western  eye  as  ludicrous. 
The  pen  is  fashioned  out  of  a  reed,  native  paper 
a  veritable  papyrus,  such  as  the  ancient  Egyptians 
might  have  used,  the  inkpot  a  piece  of  absorbent 
rag  or  sponge  saturated  with  a  liquid  more  or  less 
black,  and  sand  still  takes  the  place  of  blotting- 
paper.  The  scribe,  who  may  by  reason  of  his 
superior  attainments  be  accounted  in  the  van  of 
civilisation,  is  an  individual  who  squats  on  the 
ground  and  writes  on  his  knees  even  if  you  offer 
him  a  table  and  chair.  Note  the  cumbersome 
native  saddle  for  a  horse,  the  heavy  solid  wheels 
of  a  country  cart,  the  cart  itself,  constructed  with 
a  circular  floor  for  things  to  slide  off  from,  the 
artisan's  clumsy  and  insufficient  tools,  the  weav- 
er's prehistoric  loom,  the  shape  of  the  domestic 
utensils,  the  machinery  for  drawing  water  from  a 
well,  the  style  of  dress— ay,  of  women's  dress. 
Novelty  or  reform  never  enters  into  any  of  these 
or  kindred  things.  They  retain  the  fashions  of 


48  Indian  Life 

Before  Christ  in  this  twentieth  century.  Attempt 
to  introduce  any  other  and  you  are  rebuffed  with 
the  reply,  "  It  is  not  the  custom."  For  many  of 
these  things  there  is  not  the  excuse  of  ignorance. 
The  native  has  the  superior  model  before  him,  and 
deliberately  rejects  it.  It  is  the  crass  prejudice 
of  a  conservatism  more  crusted  than  the  laws  of 
cricket,  and  not  to  be  beguiled  by  any  demonstra- 
tion. "  My  father  used  this  article,  and  therefore 
it  is  my  duty  to  use  it;  would  you  have  me  set 
myself  up  for  a  wiser  man  than  my  revered 
parent  ?  "  is  the  reply  which  stifles  all  attempt  at 
reform. 

But  stay.  There  is  one  notable  exception  to 
this  rule  which  I  should  be  guilty  of  a  gross  in- 
justice to  omit.  The  Indian  tailor  has  thrown 
away  his  needle  and  taken  to  the  sewing-machine. 
It  comes  upon  you  with  something  of  a  shock 
when,  as  you  chance  to  pass  through  a  bazaar, 
you  suddenly  become  aware  of  the  whir  of  me- 
chanical action,  and,  lo!  there  is  a  grave  bearded 
man,  squatting,  near  by  and  driving  his  Singer, 
which  (to  add  appropriateness  to  the  picture)  he 
has  purchased  on  the  hire  system.  I  cannot  ex- 
plain this  departure  from  custom,  unless  it  be  that 
the  Hindu  derzie,  like  the  Bnglish  cobbler,  is  a 
Radical  from  the  force  of  a  calling  which  lends 
itself  to  contemplation. 

When  you  come  to  abstract  custom,  you  cannot 
stir  the  Hindu  off  his  line  of  rail.  This  man  will 
not  do  this,  nor  that  man  that,  for  no  earthly 


Manners  and  Customs         49 

reason  except  that  it  is  against  his  custom.  This 
is  at  the  bottom  of  those  enormous  domestic 
establishments  which  enter  into  the  prodigality 
of  Anglo-Indian  life.  The  combined  work  of  the 
army  of  servants  is  capable  of  achievement  by  a 
general  servant  in  Bngland.  But  when  a  Euro- 
pean attempts  to  shift  things  out  of  their  eternal 
groove,  he  is  at  once  confronted  with  that  one  re- 
ply which  admits  of  no  argument  in  the  native 
mind.  And  I  must  candidly  admit  that  the  plea 
of  dustoor  nahin  hai  is  often  a  conscientious  ob- 
jection, although  this  does  not  prevent  it  from  be- 
coming a  comfortable  excuse  on  occasions. 

In  social  and  religious  matters,  the  despotism 
of  custom  is  perhaps  most  pronounced.  It  leads 
to  preposterous  and  extravagant  expenditure  on 
marriage  and  funeral  ceremonies;  it  entails  long 
and  expensive  pilgrimages;  it  established  Suttee, 
or  the  self-immolation  of  the  widow  on  her  hus- 
band's funeral  pyre;  it  permitted,  nay,  even  now 
permits,  infanticide;  and  the  sale  of  female  child- 
ren for  immoral  purposes  and  the  institution  of  the 
Temple  prostitute  are  crimes  created  by  custom 
and  not  religion. 

The  Brahmins  are,  in  the  main,  the  supporters 
and  guardians  of  custom;  they  themselves,  whose 
privilege  it  is  to  prey  upon  the  people,  are  bol- 
stered up  by  it.  Their  hoary  despctism  is  the 
oldest  and  crudest  custom  of  all. 

Truly  has  it  been  said  that  custom  is  the  great- 
est obstacle  to  civilisation.  It  stands  in  the  path 


50  Indian  Life 

like  a  lion.  It  dulls  the  moral  sense  and  cramps 
material  effort.  It  has  left  the  natives  of  India 
without  originality,  independence,  or  powers  of 
initiation.  India  is  a  country  incapable  of  in- 
digenous reform.  Two  thousand  years  ago  its 
social  life  reached  a  certain  standard  of  civilisa- 
tion, and  it  has  stayed  there  ever  since.  The  lim- 
itations imposed  by  custom  have  been  the  cause  of 
this  national  paralysis. 


CHAPTER  IV 


FROM  RYOTS  TO   RAJAHS 

EVERY  one  knows  what  a  rajah  is,  but  the 
ryot  is  not  such  a  widely  recognised  man. 
Yet  two  thirds  of  the  population  of  the  British 
Empire  is  composed  of  ryots,  who  outnumber  the 
inhabitants  of  the  British  Isles  by  five  to  one. 
The  ryot  is,  in  short,  the  Indian  peasant,  and  in 
the  census  papers  he  comes  out  easily  top  of  the 
list  with  a  score  of  over  two  hundred  millions. 
He  is  the  poorest  man  who  owns  allegiance  to  the 
King,  and  his  average  income  is  three  halfpence 
a  day.  Oftentimes  it  comes  to  pass  that  between 
him  and  salvation  only  hovers  a  shower  of  rain. 
For  a  wage  of  twopence  halfpenny  or  threepence 
a  day,  he  will  emigrate  to  distant  parts  of  the  Em- 
pire; offer  him  eightpence,  and  he  will  go  to  the 
West  Indies  or  the  islands  of  the  Pacific.  He  is 
chronically  in  debt,  and  when  his  creditors  sell 
him  up  they  are  lucky  if  his  estate  realises  ten 
shillings.  Of  such  is  the  ryot  as  a  pecuniary  asset 
of  the  Empire. 

He  is  nominally  a  civilised  man,  on  whom  caste 
has  conferred  an  elaborate  social  system,  and  he 


52  Indian  Life 

has  behind  him  a  history  from  which  he  has 
evolved  a  policy — patience, — and  a  philosophy — 
fatalism.  Khoda  jdne!  ("God  knows!")  and 
"Khoda  ka  merzee  "  ("It  is  the  will  of  God  ")  sum 
up  his  speculations  of  the  future,  and  register  his 
resignation  to  the  past.  He  has  nothing  more  to 
say.  And  yet  this  hnmble  creature  produces  raj  ahs 
—  pages  of  them,  as  any  Indian  directory  will 
certify — as  penny  fares  produce  railway  kings,  or 
the  soil  of  a  flower-bed  tulips.  In  fact,  the  rajahs 
are  the  tulips  that  spring  out  of  this  sad  clay  of 
humanity.  Without  the  ryot,  there  would  be  no 
Golden  East.  He  is  the  atom  of  dust  which, 
mingled  with  millions  of  other  atoms,  gives 
growth  to  those  gorgeous  blossoms  that  shed  their 
lustre  in  England,  when  Jubilee  or  Coronation 
calls  them  to  her  shores.  Those  gems  and  jewels 
you  see  decorating  the  portly  exteriors  of  dusky 
potentates  are  paid  for  with  the  sweat  of  the  ryot's 
brow.  A  large  portion  of  the  eighty  million 
pounds  of  revenue  annually  extracted  from  India 
comes  from  the  pockets  of  the  peasantry. 

"The  ryot  at  home"  can  be  drawn  with  a 
piece  of  charcoal  on  a  whitewashed  wall.  Item,  a 
single-roomed  thatched  hut,  built  by  himself, 
without  doors,  windows,  or  chimney;  item,  a 
floor,  plastered  with  cow-dung,  and  three  or  five 
bricks,  set  like  a  robin  trap,  to  serve  as  fire-place; 
item,  a  rough  framework  of  wood  with  some  coir 
rope  strung  across  it  to  act  as  a  bed  for  the  master 
of  the  house;  item,  a  few  earthenware  pots  to  con- 


From  Ryots  to  Rajahs         53 

tain  water,  and  ditto  dishes  to  serve  up  food  in; 
item,  something  which  looks  like  a  patchwork 
door-mat,  but  is  in  reality  his  bedclothes;  item,  a 
cloth  for  his  loins,  another  for  his  shoulders,  and 
a  third  for  his  head;  item,  his  wife's  petticoat, 
bodice,  and  saree  (into  which,  woman-like,  she 
manages  to  get  a  dash  of  colour  and  look  pictur- 
esque). The  inventory  is  complete.  We  read  in 
the  Bible  of  a  man  taking  up  his  bed  and  walk- 
ing; the  ryot  can  in  many  cases  not  only  take  up 
his  bed,  but  all  his  family's  belongings,  and  trot 
off  with  them. 

His  uneventful  life  is  one  of  dreary  monotony 
and  labour,  with  a  week  of  seven  working  days. 
Perhaps  three  or  four  times  a  year,  he  enjoys  a 
holiday,  when  some  festival  of  his  caste  permits 
the  opportunity.  If  he  has  saved  up  fourpence  to 
squander  on  sweetmeats,  he  is  a  jubilant  man. 
But  a  little  of  this  dissipation  has  to  go  a  long 
way,  and  his  eye  is  always  on  the  sky,  looking 
for  that  shower  of  rain.  If  it  does  not  come,  he  is 
bankrupt.  Nay,  as  like  as  not,  the  blue  firma- 
ment may  have  his  death-warrant  written  on  it. 

The  field  he  tills  is  not  his  own,  for  in  India  all 
land  belongs  to  the  ruler  of  the  territory,  and  rent 
has  to  be  paid  for  it;  he  is  assessed  from  an 
eighth  to  half  his  produce.  If  he  has  mortgaged 
his  land,  and  he  nearly  always  has,  it  is  iever  less 
than  half. 

If  he  has  no  land,  he  must  still  be  taxed.  It 
is  naturally  rather  difficult  to  levy  on  a  person 


54  Indian  Life 

whose  income  is  tenpence  halfpenny  a  week;  but 
still  it  must  be  done  in  order  that  the  wheels 
of  the  chariot  of  British  Empire  may  roll  on. 
You  would  think  that  a  man  who  was  too  poor  to 
hold  land  under  the  conditions  described  would 
be  too  poor  to  tax.  Excise  cannot  reach  him;  it 
would  be  positively  indecent  to  demand  tribute 
from  his  dress,  although  if  in  his  vanity  he  de- 
mands English  cotton  goods  he  has  to  pay  duty 
on  them.  But  the  Government  of  India  in  its 
infinite  wisdom  has  discovered  a  method  of  bleed- 
ing stones.  In  the  economy  of  nature,  man  is  an 
animal  who  cannot  avoid  eating  salt,  and  that 
necessary  article  of  diet  has  been  put  under  con- 
tribution, whereby  even  the  beggars  of  the  Empire 
pay  their  tribute  to  Caesar.  The  salt-tax  is  one  of 
the  soundest  fiscal  resources  in  India. 

In  the  district  where  I  lived  there  were  some 
mines  that  yielded  black  salt,  a  villainous-looking 
substance  like  dark  sandstone.  I  have  known 
natives  to  travel  three  days'  journey  to  those 
mines,  to  give  a  day's  free  labour  for  quarrying, 
and  go  home  again  three  days'  march,  in  order 
that  they  might  lay  in  their  year's  supply  at  the 
cheapest  rate.  It  cost  them  a  week's  travel,  plus 
a  shilling,  and  most  of  the  shilling  went  to  Gov- 
ernment in  the  shape  of  salt-tax. 

I  vow  there  is  no  more  pathetic  figure  in  the 
British  Empire  than  the  Indian  ryot.  His  mas- 
ters have  ever  been  unjust  to  him,  and  ground  and 
ground  him  until  everything  has  been  expressed, 


From  Ryots  to  Rajahs         55 

except  the  marrow  of  his  bones.  Even  Nature 
has  scant  pity  on  him,  for  she  constantly  scourges 
him  with  famine,  and  (as  happened  three  years 
ago)  exterminates  a  million  lives  with  a  dry 
breath.  A  sword,  like  that  of  Damocles,  hangs 
permanently  suspended  over  the  ryot,  and  every 
sowing  season,  he  sees  the  hair  that  sustains  it 
stretching  like  a  piece  of  elastic.  Perhaps  it  is  a 
merciful  thing  for  him  that  he  is  a  fatalist,  and 
that  "  the  will  of  God  "  sufficiently  explains  for 
him  the  multitude  of  his  hardships  and  the  in- 
equality of  his  state. 

As  in  England,  so  in  India,  it  is  a  great  step  up 
from  the  agricultural  labourer  to  the  artisan  class. 
The  latter  are  a  well-to-do  folk,  and  you  seldom 
see  them  suffering  the  pinch  of  poverty,  except  in 
the  universal  cataclysm  of  a  famine.  The  system 
of  caste  has  in  practice  made  a  trades-union  of 
each  calling,  and  very  definite  are  the  rules  and 
conditions  under  which  members  work.  A  strike, 
in  the  English  sense,  does  not  enter  into  the  policy 
of  the  Eastern  artisan;  but,  nevertheless,  he  has 
an  acute  appreciation  of  the  exact  amount  of 
work  to  be  rendered  for  his  remuneration,  which 
is  regulated  by  custom,  and  not  individual  ability, 
and  you  cannot  hurry  him. 

He  is  often  an  ingenious  fellow,  and  his  aesthetic 
sense  is  proved  by  his  ornamental  metal  work,  his 
exquisite  wood-carving,  his  elegant  architecture, 
and  his  masterly  moulding.  Sir  George  Birdwood 
has  it  that  he  is  a  born  artist.  If  you  let  him  go 


56  Indian  Life 

to  work  his  own  way,  he  will  often  surmount  diffi- 
culties you  would  not  give  him  the  credit  of  being 
able  to  overcome.  I  can  remember  a  village 
blacksmith  who  was  employed  as  an  assistant 
handy-man  to  an  engineer,  and  eventually  stepped 
into  his  place,  not  only  driving  an  engine,  but 
keeping  its  working  parts  in  repair.  I  have 
known  a  mason  whose  wage  was  sixpence  a  day 
to  build  a  house  from  a  plan,  when  he  himself 
could  neither  read  nor  write;  and  a  carpenter  on 
four  shillings  a  week  to  copy  most  excellently  well 
the  design  of  a  piece  of  English  furniture  from 
the  illustration  in  an  advertisement. 

In  many  cases,  not  only  is  the  calling  of  the 
artisan  hereditary,  but  his  particular  appointment. 
Each  village  has  its  blacksmith,  carpenter,  and 
potter,  who  are  communal  functionaries,  and 
bound  by  immemorial  custom  to  render  certain 
services,  for  which  they  get  what  is  in  effect  a 
salary  from  the  village,  and  each  villager  has  a 
prescriptive  right  to  have  certain  things  done  for 
him.  But  amongst  these  skilled  folk  you  shall 
look  in  vain  for  a  plumber,  a  painter,  or  a  cabinet- 
maker, as  you  may  for  a  chemist's,  a  stationer's, 
or  a  bookseller's  shop.  On  the  other  hand,  you 
will  find  many  more  workers  in  brass,  silver,  and 
gold  than  in  similar  communities  in  England 
— for  this  reason,  that  all  the  native's  domestic 
utensils  are  made  of  brass,  and  most  of  his  sav- 
ings go  to  making  silver  or  gold  ornaments  for  his 
wife.  That  is  his  ' '  capital. ' ' 


From  Ryots  to  Rajahs         57 

The  common  carrier  does  a  great  business  in 
India,  though  much  less  now  than  in  the  days 
before  railways.  In  many  parts,  beasts  of  burden, 
chiefly  oxen,  are  the  principal  means  of  transport, 
and  the  brinjari's  life  is  much  like  that  of  the 
gipsy's.  You  meet  him  everywhere,  with  his 
droves  of  pack-oxen,  carrying  grain  and  merchan- 
dise from  distant  places  to  feed  the  great  lines  of 
railway.  He  seems  out  of  date  in  this  age,  and 
yet  a  hundred  years  ago  his  prototype  was  com- 
mon enough  in  England,  when  the  roads  there 
were  certainly  not  to  be  compared  with  those  in 
India  at  the  present  day. 

Of  all  classes  in  Indian  life  there  is  no  one  who 
seems  so  admirably  suited  to  his  setting  as  the 
Indian  tradesman.  In  the  first  place,  he  lives  in 
an  atmosphere  of  money,  be  it  silver,  copper,  or 
cowrie  shells,  and  that  appeals  to  the  national 
character.  In  the  second  place,  he  can  be  indo- 
lently industrious,  that  is  to  say,  put  in  a  long 
day's  work  sitting  on  his  hams. 

In  a  calling  where  competition  largely  enters, 
the  Indian  tradesman  is  curiously  conservative. 
He  does  not  go  about  looking  for  a  good  "pitch," 
or  trying  to  find  a  neighbourhood  where  he  will 
have  a  monopoly  of  the  article  he  deals  in.  Cus- 
tom has  ordained  that  in  an  Indian  bazaar  birds 
of  a  feather  shall  flock  together,  and  the  different 
streets  become  a  sort  of  exclusive  market  for  each 
commodity.  In  this  place,  you  will  see  a  row  of 
grain  sellers,  in  that,  a  congregation  of  hardware 


58  Indian  Life 

merchants ;  the  butchers  are  all  established  cheek 
by  jowl  yonder,  and  the  cloth  merchants  cluster 
in  a  quarter  of  their  own.  A  morning's  miscel- 
laneous shopping  takes  you  "  round  the  town." 
The  art  of  advertising  is  absolutely  unknown,  and 
the  shopkeeper's  name  is  more  often  than  not  con- 
sidered unnecessary  above  his  shop.  You  would 
think  that  the  communal  system,  which  is  so 
characteristic  of  the  Indian  village,  had  entered 
into  the  trade  of  the  country,  and  that  it  was  con- 
ducted on  the  principles  of  a  trust,  with  no  need 
to  compete. 

The  shopkeeper  sits  on  the  floor  of  his  shop, 
surrounded  by  his  various  goods,  and  his  client 
addresses  him  from  the  street  or  gutter.  He 
never  rises  to  serve  a  customer,  for  everything  is 
within  reach  of  his  hand.  He  may  solicit  the 
passer-by  to  purchase,  but  if  unsuccessfully,  his 
philosophy  is  much  the  same  as  the  ryot's — it  is 
the  will  of  God.  If,  however,  any  one  stops  to 
deal,  he  will  haggle  for  all  time.  Providence 
having  sent  a  customer  his  way,  the  personal 
equation  enters,  and  he  must  not  be  allowed  to 
depart  without  buying. 

The  shops  in  a  bazaar  all  seem  about  the  same 
size.  There  are  no  large  establishments,  and  a 
Corner  Grocery  or  Cash  Stores  are  out  of  the 
question,  because  each  man  sells  his  particular 
wares  and  nothing  else.  There  are  no  shop- 
assistants,  and,  needless  to  say,  no  early  closing. 
Women  never  meddle  with  trade,  which  is  solely 


From  Ryots  to  Rajahs         59 

in  the  hands  of  the  men.  Credit  is  universally 
given,  and  huge  interest  added.  Short  weights 
are  common,  and  the  milkman  waters  his  milk  to 
an  atrocious  degree.  Scales  are  made  of  wood 
and  string,  and  before  weighmeut  are  ostenta- 
tiously suspended  to  demonstrate  that  they  hang 
evenly,  whilst  when  it  comes  to  the  balance,  the 
side  of  the  hand  is  always  on  the  side  of  the  com- 
modity being  weighed,  and  seldom  idle.  A  na- 
tive will  brag  that  he  "saved"  or  "made"  so 
much  in  the  process  of  weighing.  Silversmiths 
require  particular  attention,  or  they  will  mix  alloy 
with  sterling  metal.  The  ambition  of  every  trader 
is  to  become  a  money-lender,  for  usury  has  an 
irresistible  charm  to  the  native  mind. 

The  moneyed  classes  in  India  are  either  land- 
owners on  a  large  scale  or  merchants  trading  in  a 
large  way.  They  form  a  small  percentage  of  the 
population  in  point  of  numbers.  The  investment 
of  wealth  in  India  inclines  to  land,  for  in  a  coun- 
try where  the  soil  theoretically  belongs  to  the 
ruler,  to  possess  a  share  carries  a  certain  prestige 
with  it,  and  the  instinct  of  the  Hindu  race  is 
agricultural.  The  Indian  system  of  registration 
makes  land  tenure  far  more  safe  and  simple  than 
in  England,  with  its  intricacies  of  titles  and  title- 
deeds.  There  is,  however,  a  growing  tendency 
to  invest  moneys  in  securities,  and  the  Govern- 
ment savings  banks  are  well  patronised.  In  the 
head  centres  of  commerce,  the  mercantile  classes 
have  been  bitten  with  the  mania  of  speculative 


60  Indian  Life 

investment,  and  the  cotton  market  of  Bombay 
and  the  industrial  ventures  in  Calcutta  supply 
plenty  of  media  for  gambling.  When  gold  was 
discovered  in  Southern  India  some  years  ago, 
many  companies  were  formed,  and  the  wild  specu- 
lation in  their  shares  was  quite  Western  in  its 
intensity.  The  spirit  of  gambling  is  curiously 
pronounced  in  a  race  that  is  otherwise  thrifty  by 
instinct.  The  Marwarries,  or  native  bankers  of 
Calcutta,  wager  wildly  on  the  rain  when  the  mon- 
soon is  about  to  burst,  and,  to  draw  illustration 
from  a  trifle,  in  bargaining  between  Europeans 
and  shopkeepers,  a  proposal  to  toss  to  fix  the 
price  is  seldom  declined,  and  sometimes  proposed. 
"Hoarding"  is  very  commonly  adopted  by 
those  who  have  money,  and  mother  earth  is  prob- 
ably the  principal  of  all  Indian  banks.  To  dig  a 
hole  in  the  floor  of  his  house  and  bury  his  money 
there  is  still  the  favourite  resource  of  many  a 
native,  and  could  all  the  buried  treasure  in  the 
country  be  brought  to  light,  it  would  probably  be 
sufficient  to  pay  off  the  national  debt  of  the  Em- 
pire. In  my  own  experience,  I  have  frequently, 
in  the  course  of  business  transactions,  had  money 
tendered  me  in  bags  the  shaking  of  which  dis- 
closed a  very  fair  sample  of  the  soil  from  which 
the  rupees  had  recently  been  disinterred;  and  I 
have  known  much  wailing  and  lamentation  to  fol- 
low the  sudden  death  of  an  individual  who  had 
omitted  to  disclose  the  spot  where  his  money  was 
hidden  from  his  own  heirs. 


From  Ryots  to  Rajahs         61 

The  homes  of  the  moneyed  classes  do  not,  as  a 
rule,  display  the  striking  contrast  to  the  homes  of 
the  poor  to  which  one  is  accustomed  in  England. 
Drawing  and  dining  rooms  there  reflect  the  taste 
and  indicate  the  care  of  English  wives,  but  in 
India,  the  woman  has  no  voice  in  these  matters, 
for  her  apartments  are  separate  and  secluded. 
Then,  again,  there  is  no  furniture;  chairs  and 
tables  are  unknown  in  Indian  native  life,  not  to 
mention  glazed  windows  and  chimneys.  The 
Indian  has  no  sense  of  surrounding  himself  with 
comfort,  in  English  home  phrase.  Cover  the  floor 
with  mats  or  carpets,  and  you  have  finished  his 
house-furnishing.  He  would  feel  as  awkward  in 
a  furnished  room  as  Europeans  would  to  live  in 
one  of  his  bare  apartments.  The  love  of  display 
is  a  guiding  principle  in  the  lives  of  the  wealthy, 
and  if  they  squander  money,  they  would  much 
rather  buy  an  equipage  that  will  attract  atten- 
tion when  they  are  abroad  than  furnish  their 
homes  in  a  way  which  only  the  occasional  Euro- 
pean visitor  could  appreciate,  and  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  which  would  be  positive  discomfort. 
You  have  but  to  see  a  native  sitting  on  a  chair 
to  realise  this,  albeit  the  offer  of  one  is  the 
most  coveted  compliment  you  can  pay  him.  He 
writhes  in  it  much  as  an  Englishman  would  do 
were  he  compelled  to  sit  for  any  length  of  time  on 
the  floor. 

High,  high  on  the  top  of  the  Indian  social  tree, 
whose  roots  draw  nourishment  from  the  two 


62  Indian  Life 

hundred  millions  of  ryots,  blossoms  the  rajah. 
How  many  there  are  of  him,  big,  little,  and  mid- 
dling, it  would  be  hard  to  say  (for  the  principle  of 
petty  principalities  is  as  indigenous  to  Hindustan 
as  to  Germany),  but  it  may  safely  be  stated  as  not 
very  far  short  of  a  thousand.  How  petty  some  of 
them  are  who  are,  nevertheless,  entitled  to  the  dis- 
tinction of"  Rajah  "  can  scarce  be  credited.  One 
I  knew  would  hobnob  with  my  servants,  and  his 
revenue  from  his  hereditary  kingdom  was  con- 
siderably less  than  £200  a  year.  He  lived  in  a 
most  picturesque  old  castle,  inhabited  chiefly  by 
snakes,  scorpions,  and  bats,  but  he  spent  most  of 
his  life  in  the  neighbouring  British  law  court  de- 
fending actions  for  debt.  I  remember  entering  a 
walled  town  in  Kattywar  and  seeing  what  looked 
like  a  loafer  drinking  gin  out  of  a  bottle  as  he 
squatted  in  the  gateway.  "Who  are  you?"  I 
asked.  "  The  King  of  this  country,"  he  replied 
with  perfect  truth.  He  boasted  an  ancestry  that 
was  supposed  to  go  back  to  the  sun.  And  talking 
of  ancestry,  in  the  published  life  of  "  Lutfullah," 
a  respectable  Mahomedan  gentleman,  you  may 
see  in  the  beginning  a  pedigree  extended  back  to 
Adam  in  sober  pride  and  credulous  satisfaction. 

From  the  riffraff  of  royalty,  to  whom  I  have 
alluded,  it  is  a  far  cry  to  such  potentates  as  the 
Nizam  of  Hyderabad,  the  Guicwar  of  Baroda,  or 
the  Maharajah  of  Mysore,  rulers  who  govern 
kingdoms  as  extensive  as  the  British  Isles  in 
whole  or  in  part.  Nor  must  mention  be  omitted 


From  Ryots  to  Rajahs         63 

of  the  Rajah  of  Udaipur,  whose  proud  boast  is 
that  he  never  bent  the  knee  to  the  Great  Mogul. 
His  absence  through  "indisposition"  from  the 
Delhi  durbar  ceremony  of  January,  1903,  when 
the  King  was  proclaimed  Emperor  of  India,  was, 
I  make  no  doubt,  due  to  his  disinclination  to  yield 
precedence  to  other  rajahs  placed  above  him. 

Officially  the  nice  degrees  of,  what  I  may  call, 
the  superior  kings  are  indicated  by  the  salutes 
they  are  entitled  to  receive.  Thus  there  are  some 
three  or  four  to  whom  the  compliment  of  twenty- 
one  guns  is  accorded  on  State  occasions.  From 
this,  by  diminutions  of  two  guns,  the  salutes 
dwindle  down  to  nine.  The  greatest  punishment 
that  can  be  inflicted  on  an  Indian  king  is  to  dock 
him  a  couple  of  guns  in  his  salute.  It  sends 
him  down  a  place  in  his  class,  and  the  jealousy 
amongst  these  sovereigns  transcends  description. 

Another  mode  of  assessing  a  rajah  is  by  his  in- 
come, which  is  in  practice  the  entire  revenue  of 
his  state.  As  the  English  talk  of  six-pounders, 
twelve-ton  guns,  and  eighty-ton  guns,  so  they  talk 
in  India  of  one-lakh,  ten-lakh,  and  thirty-lakh 
rajahs,  a  lakh  being  a  hundred  thousand  rupees. 
The  rajah  fixes  his  own  civil  list,  and  expends 
the  balance  of  his  revenue  on  the  expenses  of  his 
state,  and  his  life  is  often  one  long  struggle  to 
keep  the  major  portion  to  squander  on  himself. 

The  Indian  courtier  has  brought  the  art  of 
fawning  and  flattering  to  an  acme,  and  words 
would  be  powerless  to  describe  the  atmosphere 


64  Indian  Life 

of  adulation  in  which  the  rajah  lives.  To  see 
him  lost  in  self-indulgence  is  the  one  end  and  aim 
of  his  ministers,  in  order  that  they  may  be  left  a 
free  hand.  Thus  every  temptation  is  spread  be- 
fore him,  and  every  snare  set  that  safety  permits. 
When  a  rajah  takes  to  vicious  ways,  it  may  be 
said  that  what  he  does  not  do  to  disgrace  human- 
ity leaves  very  little  to  be  done.  Happily  the 
power  of  life  and  death  is  not  left  in  his  hands 
by  the  suzerain  power. 

There  is  a  school  for  young  rajahs,  where  they 
are  trained  in  the  way  they  should  go,  and  afforded 
an  education  on  good  wholesome  public-school 
lines.  It  has  worked  wonders,  and  is  turning 
out  a  new  race  of  rajahs  to  take  the  place  of  the 
old,  besotted,  obese  brutes,  who  have  disgraced  so 
many  thrones  in  the  Kast.  The  new  rajah  is  a 
very  decent  fellow — certainly  for  some  time  after 
he  has  left  school.  He  can  ride,  shoot,  play  polo, 
cricket,  tennis,  and  other  games,  and  comport 
himself  like  a  man;  dance,  too,  and  behave  in  a 
drawing-room  like  a  gentleman.  If  he  avoids 
drink,  and  rises  superior  to  the  almost  overpower- 
ing temptations  of  the  zenana  or  the  harem,  he 
often  becomes  a  first-rate  governing  man,  espe- 
cially if  he  belongs  to  one  of  the  martial  races. 

The  power  for  good  and  evil  vested  in  the  hands 
of  a  rajah  is  enormous,  even  though  he  have  a 
British  official  Resident  at  his  court  to  keep  an 
eye  on  how  he  is  conducting  himself.  No  Vice- 
roy or  Governor  can  appeal  to  the  people  of  India 


From  Ryots  to  Rajahs         65 

like  one  of  their  own  rulers.  The  Englishman  is 
an  impersonal  potentate;  no  matter  what  his 
status,  he  is  "  unclean  "  to  the  Hindu,  a  "  Kafir  " 
to  the  Mahomedan.  He  lacks  colour  and  pictur- 
esqueness,  even  though  he  be  a  Lord  Curzon,  and 
altogether  fails  to  elicit  the  same  genuine  admira- 
tion in  an  Indian  durbar  that  an  Indian  rajah  does 
in  an  English  assembly.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
rajah  is  in  accord  with  his  subjects  in  sentiment, 
creed,  and  thought.  He  appeals  to  their  instincts 
with  his  display.  They  love  to  see  his  elephants 
and  gaily  caparisoned  horsemen,  his  silks  and  his 
jewels,  his  retainers  and  entourage.  His  bar- 
baric pleasures  delight  them;  he  tosses  money  to 
the  multitudes  in  his  progress;  he  feasts  them  at 
appropriate  seasons;  he  is  a  link  between  the 
present  and  the  past.  What  is  the  coming  or  go- 
ing of  a  sober-coated  foreigner  to  them  ?  What, 
even,  the  marriage  of  a  Viceroy?  But  when  a 
rajah  comes  into  his  own,  or  marries,  or  has  a 
son  born  to  him,  then  is  the  whole  kingdom  inter- 
ested, entertained,  and  made  happy  in  a  round  of 
feasting  and  festivities  free  to  all. 

And  if  he  "  squeezes ' '  his  ryots  to  get  money 
to  build  a  new  palace,  or  deck  with  jewels  the 
latest  favourite  in  his  zenana,  or  to  entertain  a 
Viceroj7,  or — newest  and  most  extravagant  whim 
of  all! — to  make  a  summer  trip  to  England,  well, 
there  is  the  land;  it  bears  crops.  There  is  the 
land-tiller;  he  is  patient  and  long-suffering.  He 
has  paid  the  piper  for  ages,  and  never  called  the 


66 


Indian  Life 


tune.  He  can  go  on  paying!  And  whilst  his 
liege  lord  and  master  is  astonishing  the  richest 
city  in  the  world  with  the  glitter  of  his  gems,  and 
the  magnificence  of  his  establishment,  the  poorest 
subject  in  the  world  merely  turns  his  eyes  to  the 
blue  skies  and  sighs. 


CHAPTER  V 

JACKS  IN  OFFICE 

WH  have  seen  how  India  is  divided  by  race, 
language,  religion,  caste,  and  wealth, 
but  there  is  yet  another  division,  which,  although 
it  only  detaches  a  fraction  from  the  whole,  still 
demands  attention,  because  it  is  the  governing 
element.  And  the  members  of  it  afford  an  ad- 
mirable illustration  of  the  attitude  we  understand 
by  the  phrase  "Jacks  in  Office." 

The  possibilities  of  temporal  power  are  nowhere 
more  thoroughly  appreciated  and  developed  than 
in  India.  The  Indian  official,  European  or  na- 
tive, is  the  master,  not  the  servant,  of  the  public. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  native  has  ele- 
vated service  under  Government  into  something 
very  like  a  privileged  predatory  caste,  common 
to  Hindu  and  Mahomedan.  The  "  Man  in  Au- 
thority, ' '  no  matter  how  humble  his  appointment, 
driws  away  from  his  fellows,  and  acquires  a  defi- 
nite position  and  power  over  them  from  his  asso- 
ciation with  the  machinery  of  Government.  The 
highest  ambition  of  every  native  is  to  get  into  the 
service  of  the  State,  for  it  assures  him  the  three 
67 


68  Indian  Life 

P's — pa}T,  pension,  and  pickings.  And  the  great- 
est of  these  is  pickings. 

All  authority  in  India  is  despotic.  British  rule 
is  a  despotism  pure  and  simple,  tempered  with  a 
bland  desire  to  deal  justly.  The  rule  of  the  rajah 
is  personal,  with  a  corner  of  his  eye  on  the  British 
Resident  to  see  how  he  takes  encroachments  on 
the  revenue  for  the  Civil  I/ist.  Spreading  down- 
wards from  these  summits,  the  subtle  spirit  of 
despotism  pervades  all  branches  of  the  administra- 
tions. The  lower  you  penetrate  the  social  scale, 
and  the  more  inwardly  you  explore  the  ignorant 
masses,  so  assuredly  shall  you  find  the  despotism 
greater  and  more  brutal.  For  sheer  unmitigated 
tyranny,  where  he  has  an  object  in  view  to  gain, 
the  policeman  of  India  knows  no  equal;  in  cun- 
ning and  rapacity,  the  chupprassi,  or  guardian  of 
the  threshold,  is  a  man  who  has  reduced  black- 
mailing to  a  fine  art. 

The  administration  of  India  is  carried  on  in 
practice  by  something  like  three  thousand  Eng- 
lishmen, who  act  as  heads  or  assistant  heads  of 
departments.  All  the  working  parts  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  Government,its  subordinate  and  clerical 
posts,  are  filled  by  natives.  An  average  Indian 
"  district,"  as  each  administrative  area  is  called, 
is  a  tract  of  country  as  extensive  as  the  largest 
English  counties.  The  English  staff  administer- 
ing this  territory  seldom  exceeds  more  than  five 
or  six  officials,  to  carry  out  whose  orders  there 
exist  a  company  of  native  clerks  and  a  regiment 


Jacks  in  Office  69 

of  understrappers.  The  actual  execution  of  au- 
thority filters  through  their  hands.  There  is  no 
means  of  ventilating  abuse,  for  there  is  no  public 
opinion,  no  public  Press  (broadly  speaking),  and 
no  publicity  in  India.  Conceive,  then  the  result 
when  every  Jack-man  of  that  subordinate  and 
crafty  crew  is  bent  on  making,  by  hook  or  by 
crook,  some  illicit  profit  over  and  above  the  salary 
assigned  for  the  execution  of  his  official  duties. 

In  England,  a  civil  servant  is  rightly  regarded 
as  a  man  of  fixed  income.  Be  he  in  a  Govern- 
ment Department  or  the  Post-Office,  anything,  in 
short,  from  a  Prime  Minister  to  a  telegraph-boy, 
you  know  that  his  remuneration  is  exact  and  un- 
elastic.  But  in  India,  the  native  employee  of 
Government  would  be  horrified  to  think  that  his 
income  was  fixed.  On  the  contrary,  he  regards 
it  merely  as  a  stepping-stone  to  making  money. 
Where  there  is  litigation,  direct  taxation,  and 
crime,  there  is  profit  to  be  derived  by  the  shrewd 
and  enterprising  man,  and  the  Indian  Jack  in 
Office  is  the  person  designed  by  Nature  to  show 
how  to  derive  it. 

Bribery  and  corruption  are  the  rule,  not  the  ex- 
ception, in  the  Bast.  In  every  transaction  in  life, 
it  is  held  to  be  not  only  allowable  but  sensible  to 
derive  some  advantage  over  and  above  the  sched- 
uled amount.  He  would  be  a  poor  fool  who  did 
not  avail  himself  of  dustoorie,  or  the  customary 
fee.  There  is  not  a  single  native  in  India  who 
does  not  pay  or  receive  dustoorie  in  some  form  or 


70  Indian  Life 

other.  It  is  the  unearned  increment  of  the  East. 
It  enters  into  every  phase  of  life,  and,  according 
to  the  form  it  assumes,  may  be  a  perquisite,  a 
commission,  a  fine,  a  bribe,  or  blackmail.  In 
transactions  between  the  subject  and  those  placed 
in  authority  over  him,  it  becomes  a  bribe  or  black- 
mail, and  Jack  in  Office  is  the  recipient,  and  the 
whole  of  the  rest  of  the  population  the  fleeced. 

Bribery  is  ingrained  in  the  native  character,  and 
a  recognised  part  of  the  etiquette  of  their  social 
system.  The  inferior  always  approaches  a  new 
superior  with  a  gift  in  his  hand — made,  not  from 
love,  but  from  policy,  and  to  neglect  it  is  boorish 
rudeness,  as  well  as  a  folly.  It  is  a  bribe  in  em- 
bryo, meant  to  smooth  the  way  for  an  ultimate 
benefit.  Notwithstanding,  the  native  will  affect 
to  be  vastly  affronted  if  it  is  declined.  It  is  called 
a  nuzzer  or  ddli,  which,  being  interpreted,  means 
a  complimentary  tribute.  Ask  why  it  is  proffered, 
and  you  will  never  get  any  other  answer  except 
that  "  It  is  the  custom."  Needless  to  say,  Eng- 
lishmen are  pestered  with  ddlis — if  they  are  worth 
pestering.  They  usually  take  the  form  of  a  tray 
neatly  piled  with  sweetmeats,  flowers,  and  fruit, 
apparently  a  most  innocent  confection.  But, 
when  the  investment  is  fairly  safe,  a  bag  of  rupees 
not  unfrequently  lurks  under  the  pile  of  sugar- 
candy.  Say,  for  instance,  you  are  an  engineer, 
with  a  fat  contract  to  give  out,  and  a  reputation 
for  accepting  ddlis,  you  could  practically  depend 
on  that  bag  of  rupees  when  you  received  a  com- 


Jacks  in  Office  71 

plimentary  visit  from  a  local  contractor.  Happily 
such  incidents  are  exceedingly  rare  in  connection 
with  Englishmen,  and  the  ddli  contains  nothing 
more  guilty  than  roses,  oranges,  and  lollipops. 
But  with  native  officials  the  case  is  different,  and 
the  ddli  is  the  recognised  vehicle  for  a  bribe. 

It  is  a  moot  point  with  the  Anglo-Indian 
whether  to  accept  ddlis  of  the  innocent  description 
or  not.  Some  do;  some  don't.  In  the  latter  case, 
they  ' '  touch  and  remit ' '  them,  which  is  supposed 
to  salve  the  feelings  of  the  donors,  whose  offer- 
ings are  theoretically  accepted,  but  in  practice  re- 
turned, as  the  touching  of  the  heels  of  a  monarch 
with  the  spurs  is  supposed  to  endow  him  with 
knightly  virtues.  Christmastide  is  the  apotheosis 
or  ddlis;  then  does  every  native  you  know  desire 
to  present  you  with  one,  his  eyes  glued  on  the  re- 
turn chance. 

If  I  have  dealt  at  a  little  length  on  the  nuzzer 
or  ddli  system,  it  is  to  illustrate  the  national 
character  with  which  Jack  in  Office  has  to  deal. 
Here  are  a  people  who  voluntarily  give  bribes; 
who  will  have  you  believe  politeness  demands  it; 
who  are  willing,  nay,  anxious,  to  expend  a  day's 
pay  in  propitiating  a  stranger  who  comes  to  as- 
sume authority  over  them.  Saddle  that  people 
with  an  administration  considerably  more  iirgent 
to  receive  than  to  give  a  bribe,  and  endowed  with 
an  absolute  faith  in  its  fitness,  and  you  shall  see 
the  art  of  extortion  carried  to  its  extreme.  Power 
in  the  hands  of  such  a  class  is  merely  a  lever  to 


72  Indian  Life 

extract  profit  from  the  powerless;  and  there  are 
no  people  in  the  world  so  powerless,  unprotected, 
and  preyed  upon  as  the  peasants  of  the  Indian 
Empire.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that 
several  millions  of  rupees  are  paid  away  every 
year  in  India  in  the  shape  of  dustoorie,  or  the  un- 
earned increment  of  pillagers. 

And  now  let  us  see  how  these  conditions  work 
out  in  practice  in  India.  Every  schoolboy  knows 
that  the  sale  of  justice  in  the  East  is  a  simple  and 
time-honoured  institution.  Is  justice  sold  under 
the  British  raj  ?  Without  a  doubt  it  is.  I  will 
pass  over  the  higher  native  officials  holding  what 
may  be  called  Englishmen's  appointments,  with 
the  observation  that  they  are  not  immaculate.  I 
could  recall  a  recent  case  where  a  bribe  of  some 
thousands  of  pounds,  specially  contracted  to  be 
paid  in  gold  bullion,  passed  between  a  litigant 
and  a  native  judge  who  was  the  highest  judicial 
authority  in  the  district.  And  I  could  quote 
several  others.  But  in  this  rank  venality  is  the 
exception. 

When  you  come  to  the  subordinate  judicial 
staff,  the  native  judges  and  magistrates,  with  re- 
stricted powers  and  comparatively  small  salaries, 
you  may  take  it  as  an  axiom  that,  in  the  slang 
phrase,  they  are  all  "  on  the  make."  Prudence 
alone  puts  a  limit  to  their  harvest.  Of  course,  no 
one  but  a  fool  would  take  a  bribe  often;  that 
would  be  the  surest  way  of  killing  the  goose  that 
laid  the  golden  eggs.  In  riding  a  foul  race,  the 


Jacks  in  Office  73 

jockey's  horse  must  gallop,  and  to  retain  a  seat 
on  the  bench  of  justice,  the  judge  must  dispense 
justice  in  general.  It  is  from  the  percentage  of 
his  backslidings  that  the  venal  judge  acquires  his 
reputation.  "  He  is  a  very  good  magistrate,"  I 
have  often  heard  it  said  of  a  native  functionary  by 
natives;  "  he  takes  very  few  bribes."  In  other 
cases,  a  sad  shake  of  the  head,  and  the  mournful, 
' '  There  is  no  satisfying  him ! ' '  has  been  a  suffi- 
cient commentary. 

Notwithstanding  this  foreknowledge  that  the 
dice  are  probably  loaded,  the  native  of  India 
plunges  into  the  lottery  of  litigation  with  absolute 
gusto.  It  is  a  speculation  that  appeals  to  him, 
requiring  as  it  does  chicanery  and  lying.  For 
whilst  blaming  the  unjust  judge,  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  the  unjust  witness  is  almost  as 
great  a  factor  in  the  prostitution  of  the  law  courts, 
and  that  perjury  is  the  basis  of  all  evidence  in 
India;  the  "  fourpenny  witness,"  who  will  for 
that  modest  professional  fee  swear  to  anything, 
haunts  the  precincts  of  the  courts,  and  will  re- 
hearse you  a  tragedy  or  concoct  you  a  con- 
catenation so  that  even  cross-examination  shall 
be  powerless  to  shake  him.  The  actual  eye-witness 
rarely  gives  his  testimony  without  introducing 
gratuitous  and  needless  fiction.  It  is  an  admitted 
and  notorious  fact  that  the  bulk  of  the  evidence 
tendered  in  the  law  courts  of  India  is  perjured, 
and  yet  prosecution  for  perjury  is  practically  un- 
known. It  is  the  "custom  ";  that  Augean  stable 


74  Indian  Life 

is  too  foul  to  attempt  to  sweep,  and  British  ad- 
ministration shrinks  from  the  task.  It  may  even 
be  logically  argued  by  the  judicial  Jack  in  Office 
that  until  Government  takes  steps  to  punish  and 
put  a  stop  to  perjury,  the  illegitimate  profits  of 
justice  may  just  as  well  pass  into  his  pockets  as 
into  those  of  the  professional  liar. 

Leaving  this  unsavoury  subject,  let  us  pass  to 
the  consideration  of  those  Jacks  in  Office  who 
have  to  make  their  illicit  gains  by  operations  less 
simple  than  selling  justice.  That,  after  all,  can 
be  done  genteelly  and  with  an  air  of  learning,  and 
even  defended  in  a  plausible  judgment  delivered 
in  open  court.  The  Indian  policeman  proceeds  in 
a  different  way.  His  the  open  palm  and  the  veiled 
threat.  A  "case  "  represents  itself  to  him  in  two 
aspects:  shall  it  be  pursued  for  reputation  or 
rupees  ?  If  he  decides  on  the  former  as  the  most 
profitable,  then  this  Jack  in  Office  has  no  hesita- 
tion in  applying  the  methods  of  the  mediaeval 
torturer  in  order  to  extort  a  confession  from  the 
accused  man.  If  lucre  is  his  object,  it  degenerates 
into  a  matter  of  blackmail,  and  most  probably  the 
trumping  up  of  false  evidence.  The  visit  of  a 
constable  to  the  most  honest  homestead  in  India  is 
like  the  visit  of  a  wolf.  When  the  inspector  follows, 
it  is  like  a  tiger  to  the  attack.  "  Once  get  the 
police  in "  is  an  Indian  phrase  that  corre- 
sponds to  the  English  "  Once  get  the  plumber 

in ."    The  Hindu's  hut  is  very  far  from  being 

his  castle.     The  policeman  literally  takes  up  his 


Jacks  in  Office  75 

abode  on  the  premises,  lives  on  the  fat  of  the  land, 
so  far  as  the  victim's  family  can  provide  it,  and 
never  departs  without  a  substantial  reason.  Those 
in  England  who  look  upon  the  ' '  Bobby  ' '  as  their 
comfortable  friend  and  the  protector  of  their 
hearths  and  homes  during  the  wicked  night 
hours,  little  know  what  awful  shape  his  Indian 
prototype  can  assume,  whose  presence  is  far  more 
dreaded  than  that  of  a  thief.  For,  after  all,  the 
native  can  defend  himself  against  a  thief,  but  he 
is  powerless  to  do  so  against  the  arch-robber  who 
poses  as  a  policeman. 

As  with  the  man  in  blue,  so  in  his  special  de- 
gree with  every  low  Jack  in  Office  in  India.  The 
surveyor  who  comes  round  to  assess  the  land  for 
taxation  can  find  a  vast  diminution  in  its  ratable 
value,  not  to  mention  its  superficial  area,  if  the 
owner  is  lavish  with  his  dustoorie  ;  the  watchman 
who  guards  a  timber  reserve  is  blind  to  the  cut- 
ting of  a  tree  if  a  quarter  of  its  value  is  slipped 
into  his  hand;  the  goods-clerk  on  an  Indian  rail- 
way, under  the  highest  pressure  of  accumulated 
consignment,0,  what  time  markets  are  urgent,  will 
always  find  an  empty  truck  for  the  merchandise 
that  is  recommended  with  a  coin  or  two.  Every 
Jack  in  Office  has  his  price;  it  is  absolutely  be- 
yond the  genius  of  the  native  character  to  refuse 
a  bribe. 

Perhaps  the  most  wonderful  Jack  of  all  is  the 
chupprassi,  who  is  a  creation  peculiar  to  the  East, 
and  a  sort  of  janitor  at  the  verandah.  He  an- 


76  Indian  Life 

nounces  your  arrival,  runs  errands,  performs  petty 
commissions,  and  is  a  blend  between  an  office- 
boy  and  a  commissionnaire.  He  lives  within  hail 
of  his  master,  and  is  supposed  to  possess  his  ear. 
You  would  not  credit  him  with  transcendent 
powers,  and  yet  the  way  that  lowly  individual 
can  coin  money  out  of  his  own  post  passes  con- 
ception. He  is  the  front-door  bell,  and  there  is 
no  seeing  the  master  unless  he  is  rung.  "  Wait; 
the  sahib  is  busy,"  is  all  he  says,  and  you  may 
wait  till  doomsday  if  you  fail  to  fee  him.  The 
well-to-do  native  has  a  distinct  disinclination  to 
being  made  to  wait;  it  is  far  more  derogatory  in 
his  eyes  than  you  would  suppose,  and  he  willingly 
pays  toll,  or,  as  you  may  say,  tolls  the  bell.  The 
poor  suppliant  with  a  petition  seeks  advice  from 
the  chupprassi,  asking  if  the  sahib  is  in  a  good 
temper  to  be  approached,  and  this  Jack  in  Office 
has  always  a  sound  opinion  to  sell.  The  power 
and  influence  accredited  to  him  are  extraordinary; 
he  is  in  and  out  of  his  master's  room;  he  knows 
all  his  moods  and  humours;  he  will  unfailingly 
tell  you  when  is  the  best  moment  to  make  appeal. 
It  may  appear  preposterous,  but  such  information 
in  a  land  where  despotism  rules  supreme  has  a 
market  value,  and  the  chupprassi  makes  the  most 
of  it.  I  have  heard  of  a  case  of  one  man  on  a 
wage  of  six  shillings  a  month  who  contrived  to 
increase  it  to  as  many  pounds  by  the  exercise  of 
his  peculiar  talents  in  imposing  on  the  credulous 
and  exacting  toll  from  the  ignorant. 


Jacks  in  Office  77 

We  have  seen  these  Jacks  in  Office  in  their 
smiling  moods  when  the  world  is  going  well  with 
them,  but  there  is  another  side  to  the  picture. 
lyet  the  seeker-after-something  be  too  poor  or  too 
ill-advised  to  bribe,  and  you  will  see  a  change 
in  the  demeanour  of  the  man  in  authority. 
He  becomes  a  truculent  tyrant,  a  domineering 
despot,  who  reflects  all  the  lightnings  of  heaven, 
and  borrows  the  roaring  of  its  thunderbolts.  He 
is  devoid  of  manners  and  politeness,  he  rants  and 
he  raves,  he  storms  and  he  swears,  and  will  have 
you  understand  that  he  is  a  portion  of  the  govern- 
ing machinery  of  the  land.  He  is  Jekyl,  or  he  is 
Hyde,  according  to  whether  you  fee  him  or  not. 

For  in  India,  generally  speaking,  as  the  inferior 
is  servile  so  is  the  superior  overbearing.  Courtesy 
from  the  high  to  the  low  is  an  almost  unknown 
quality;  from  Jack  in  Office  to  those  who  have 
dealings  with  him,  and  omit  to  fee  him,  an  un- 
known one.  When  once  the  breath  of  a  little 
power  gets  into  the  native's  nostrils,  it  invariably 
issues  out  in  the  shape  of  abuse.  The  abuse  of 
the  East  is  untranslatable,  a  thing  apart.  Eng- 
lishmen relieve  themselves  in  Hindustani  when 
they  find  their  own  tongue  inoperative.  In  the 
native  courts  of  law,  I  have  heard  a  magistrate 
address  those  he  was  trying,  or  hearing  evidence 
from,  as  dogs  and  swine.  As  for  merely  calling 
a  man  a  liar,  that  is  usually  justified  by  circum- 
stances. This  attitude  is  not  unfrequently  part 
and  parcel  of  native  official  life,  and  dropped  in 


78  Indian  Life 

private  behaviour.  Blustering  and  boorishness, 
impatience  and  petulance,  are  the  licensed  privi- 
leges of  Jacks  in  Office.  The  practice  of  civility 
never  enters  into  the  economy  of  the  native  civil 
service. 

In  common  with  other  bullies,  the  Indian  native 
official  is  a  currish-spirited  thing  at  the  bottom, 
and  he  loses  none  of  his  inherent  servility  by  his 
translation  to  the  governing  sphere.  To  his  su- 
periors, he  adopts  the  behaviour  he  exacts  from 
those  beneath  him.  Indeed,  his  humility  is  in- 
variably exaggerated  towards  those  whose  breath 
can  unmake  as  their  breath  has  made.  He  is  a 
consummate  actor  and  Machiavelian  schemer, 
who  seldom  fails  to  worm  himself  into  favour. 
Notwithstanding  his  roguery  and  backsliding,  he 
is  rarely  dismissed  from  office,  being  far  too  cun- 
ning to  run  the  risk  of  that.  Moreover,  he  is 
supported  in  his  hour  of  need  by  the  clannishness 
of  the  predatory  tribe  he  belongs  to.  There  is 
much  of  the  jackal  in  Jack  in  Office,  who  only 
fights  with  his  kind  when  it  comes  to  dividing 
the  spoil.  If,  however,  disaster  overtakes  him, 
and  he  gets  the  order  to  "  go,"  in  an  instant  the 
fierce  light  of  rapine  dies  out  of  his  eyes,  the  bulk 
of  his  turban  is  diminished,  the  ample  starched 
linen  robes  give  way  to  meagre  soiled  garments, 
his  arrogance  departs,  and  he  passes  over  to  the 
meek  majority  whose  badge  is  sufferance.  Second 
only  to  losing  caste  is  the  loss  of  employment  in 
he  service  of  Government. 


Jacks  in  Office  79 

There  are  Jacks  in  Office  outside  Government 
employ,  for  you  may  say  that  every  native  of 
India  who  has  it  in  his  power  to  confer  an  obliga- 
tion is  one  in  a  minor  degree.  The  favourite  of  a 
rich  man — and  in  the  Hast  favouritism  is  an  al- 
most universal  foible  —  who  has  the  ear  of  his 
master  can  always  put  it  to  profitable  account. 
The  Englishman's  "  bearer,"  or  valet,  has  numer- 
ous opportunities  of  turning  a  penny.  The  cook, 
who  provisions  the  larder  periodically,  does  not 
do  it  for  nothing.  They  all  exact  their  quid  pro 
quo,  and  never  a  purchase  made  for  you  or  your 
household  but  pays  its  recognised  dustoorie,  or 
commission.  Half  an  anna  in  the  rupee  is  the 
established  scale,  which  works  out  three  per  cent. , 
or  double  the  ordinary  rate  of  brokerage  in  com- 
mercial transactions.  In  a  strange  city,  if  you 
hire  a  gharrie,  which  is  the  Oriental  equivalent 
of  a  cab,  and  tell  the  man  to  drive  to  a  shop 
where  you  can  purchase  such-and-such  a  thing, 
that  jehu  gets  his  pickings  out  of  your  pur- 
chase. As  like  as  not,  you  will  have  been  pre- 
viously accosted  by  a  polite  personage,  anxious 
to  show  you  the  sights  of  the  town,  and  give 
you  the  advantage  of  his  superior  experience 
for  nothing.  He  is  a  ddlal,  or  broker,  and  the 
sign  that  passes  from  him  to  the  shopkeeper  will 
put  an  extra  ten  or  even  twenty-five  per  cent,  on 
the  shop's  price-list.  These  are  all  temporary 
Jacks  in  Office,  who  are  exploiting  your  purse  for 
their  own  benefit.  Your  groom,  when  he  brings 


8o  Indian  Life 

you  the  bill  for  shoeing  your  horse,  blandly  debits 
the  amount  at  twenty  pence,  whereof  fourpence 
goes  into  his  pocket.  This  dustoorie  is  paid  with- 
out a  murmur  by  shopkeepers,  who  know  it  is  the 
only  way  to  retain  custom.  Were  it  refused,  they 
would  soon  find  your  patronage  transferred,  for 
means  would  be  taken  to  render  what  they  sup- 
plied an  abomination  by  deliberately  spoiling  it. 
Even  Government  accepts  the  system,  and  if  out 
in  the  jungles  you  hire  a  score  of  coolies  or  half  a 
dozen  mules  to  carry  your  baggage,  there  will  be 
an  odd  half-anna  for  the  hire  of  each,  which  is  the 
agent's  dustoorie. 

All  India  sits,  or  desires  to  sit,  at  the  receipt  of 
custom.  Financial  morality  admits  it  as  perfectly 
legitimate,  and  King  Custom  condones  it.  So 
long  as  it  is  a  sort  of  allowable  brokerage  for 
poking  your  nose  into  another  man's  affairs,  per- 
haps no  great  harm  is  done.  But  the  system  has 
ploughed  the  ground  for  Jack  in  Office,  and  pre- 
pared it  for  that  cropping  with  corruption  which 
is  one  of  the  ugliest  features  of  the  administration 
of  the  Indian  Empire. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MEN-AT-ARMS   AND   SOME  OTHERS 

UNTIL  the  Pax  Brittanica  turned  swords  into 
ploughshares,  India  was  an  ideal  land  for 
the  soldier.  In  its  social  system,  the  fighting 
castes  trod  close  on  the  heels  of  the  privileged 
priestly  one,  and  men-at-arms  were  as  sand  on  the 
seashore.  For  those  who  were  fortunate  there 
were  kingdoms  to  be  won,  and  for  all,  adventure 
and  pillage.  The  feudal  system  which  obtained 
presented  countless  posts  of  command,  and  a  bold 
heart  seldom  had  to  wait  long  for  promotion. 
But  in  this  peaceful  generation  the  soldier's  sun 
has  set,  and  there  is  only  employ  for  a  quarter 
of  a  million  of  men,  where  a  century  ago  three 
millions  would  have  been  a  moderate  estimate  of 
the  aggregate  strength  of  the  standing  armies 
permanently  employed. 

Except  in  the  military  stations,  known  as 
"  Camps"  or  "  Cantonments,"  which  correspond 
to  English  garrison  towns,  the  Indian  soldier  is 
as  little  in  evidence  in  the  daily  life  of  town  and 
country  as  his  brother-in-arms  in  England.  His 
profession,  however,  continues  to  hold  its  high 
8r 


82  Indian  Life 

place  in  popular  esteem,  and  to  have  a  relation  in 
the  army  creates  a  feeling  of  pride.  In  popular 
assemblies,  the  "sepoy"  is  accorded  a  place  of 
honour,  and  is  not  debarred  admission  to  the  seats 
of  the  high,  and  in  private  life  he  is  an  object  of 
respect  and  admiration,  not  to  say  envy.  Nor  is 
this  to  be  wondered  at,  for  he  is  remarkably  well 
paid  and  treated.  In  a  country  where,  as  a  vice- 
roy has  stated,  the  average  monthly  income  of  the 
population  is  five  shillings  and  fourpence  sterling, 
the  soldier  draws  a  comparatively  princely  pay 
of  nine  shillings  and  fourpence  when  he  enlists 
(wherewith  he  has  to  feed,  but  not  to  lodge  him- 
self), rising  by  handsome  increments  to  thirteen 
shillings  and  fourpence.  When  he  has  accom- 
plished a  sufficiently  long  service  he  retires  on  a 
munificent  pension  of  tuppence  ha'penny  a  day. 
So  you  may  put  it  that  he  is  able  to  live  in  luxury 
and  die  in  comfort. 

Then,  again,  he  is  elevated  by  the  prestige 
which  attaches  to  military  service  under  the  ruling 
power  of  an  empire  ruled  by  the  sword.  He  is  a 
Jack  in  Office,  but  generally  unobjectionable. 
Army  discipline  and  the  nature  of  his  calling  lift 
him  far  above  the  blood-sucking  myrmidons  of 
the  civil  administration,  and,  apart  from  his  pro- 
fession, as  when  he  is  at  home  on  furlough  or  has 
retired  on  his  pension,  it  is  ever  a  pleasure  to  meet 
him.  It  happened  that  for  some  years  I  employed 
a  large  body  of  native  labourers,  amongst  them 
many  boys  of  sixteen  to  twenty,  of  whom  a  few 


Men-at-Arms  and  Some  Others    83 

here  and  there  used  to  enlist.  And  when  they 
next  turned  up,  and  came  to  make  their  salaam, 
well-set,  smart,  soldierly,  respectful  men,  but  with 
the  national  characteristic  of  servility  eradicated, 
it  was  a  delight  to  note  the  improvement  in  them. 
They  seemed  to  have  benefited  as  much  under 
Government  military  service  as  their  fellows 
who  went  into  the  police  and  other  civil  em- 
ployments had  degenerated,  and  they  verified 
the  assertion  sometimes  made  by  old  martinet 
drill-sergeants,  that  there  is  no  school  like  the 
army. 

The  native  of  India  in  private  life  is  a  slovenly 
man  when  he  is  in  the  habit  of  wearing  clothes; 
the  very  fashion  of  his  costume  is  a  premium  on 
untidiness,  and  his  detestation  of  physical  exer- 
tion makes  him  a  sloucher.  You  may  tell  a  sepoy 
by  his  carriage  as  easily  as  you  can  a  London 
policeman  by  his  boots.  And  when  he  is  in  uni- 
form there  are  few  more  picturesque  soldiers  in 
the  Empire,  as  London  has  observed  and  noted. 
Hodge,  translated  from  the  plough  to  the  parade- 
ground  is  a  difficult  subject  to  etherialise,  even 
when  you  dress  him  up  in  a  scarlet  coat;  but 
Kareem  Bux  and  Poorun  Singh,  togged  out  in 
khaki  "to  kill,"  with  smart  puggari,  accoutre- 
ments, and  arms,  seldom  fail  to  do  justice  to  their 
cloth,  especially  if  they  come  of  one  of  the  superior 
fighting  races,  whose  physique  only  needs  the 
drill-sergeant  to  bring  out  its  admirable  points. 
Even  the  little  Ghoorka,  with  his  bow-legs,  squat 


84  Indian  Life 

frame,  and  Mongolian  features,  presents  a  pleasing 
picture  of  smartness  in  uniform. 

In  England,  there  are  four  international  groups 
of  fighting-men  associated  with  the  four  divisions 
of  the  United  Kingdom  and  Ireland.  In  India, 
as  befits  its  cosmopolitan  nature,  the  martial  races 
are  numerous,  and  merely  to  catalogue  them 
would  fill  a  page,  and  leave  only  bewilderment 
behind.  The  Indian  soldier  always  serves  with 
his  fellows,  whether  it  be  in  a  regiment  composed 
exclusively  of  his  own  caste  or  race,  or  in  a 
' '  mixed ' '  regiment,  in  which  some  companies 
are  of  one,  some  of  another  caste.  Racial  feeling 
runs  strong,  and  leads  to  great  emulation,  and 
the  older  corps,  who  have  a  history  (the  Mutinies 
terminated  the  majority  of  them),  are  as  proud 
and  tenacious  of  their  traditions  as  the  most 
famous  of  British  and  Irish  regiments. 

In  the  piping  times  of  peace,  the  Indian  soldier 
is  a  singularly  peaceful  man.  Where  his  caste 
permits,  his  womenfolk  live  in  barracks  with  him, 
and  the  cantonment  is  a  small  city  in  its  way, 
with  its  own  bazaar,  its  numerous  "  followers," 
and  innumerable  wives  and  children.  Very  inter- 
esting and  curious  is  it  to  note  the  way  in  which 
these  latter  learn  to  drill  and  fit  themselves  for 
their  father's  profession,  which,  in  this  land 
of  inherited  occupations,  they  usually  follow  ; 
and  to  see  the  little  chaps,  down  to  veritable 
toddlers,  going  through  regimental  evolutions 
and  manoeuvres  with  the  precision  of  the  parade- 


Men-at-Arms  and  Some  Others    85 

ground,  is  an  object-lesson  in  the  hereditary 
tendency. 

The  British  public  has  a  very  fair  idea  of  the 
Indian  soldier  or  trooper  from  the  opportunities 
of  study  presented  by  the  representative  bodies 
that  have  from  time  to  time  paraded  the  streets 
of  L/ondon.  Looking  at  their  fine  stalwart  figures, 
at  the  mere  height,  weight,  bulk,  and  girth  of 
some  of  them,  it  is  difficult  to  credit  the  simplicity 
of  their  fare  and  the  frugality  of  their  lives  in 
their  native  land.  Most  of  them  are  vegetarians, 
and  those  big-boned  frames  and  brawny  muscles 
are  innocent  of  any  bolstering  up  with  flesh  food. 
Even  in  a  country  where  meat  sells  at  a  penny  a 
pound,  the  sepoy  (putting  his  caste  aside)  cannot 
afford  such  luxuries  as  beef,  mutton,  or  goat,  ex- 
cept on  high  days  and  holidays.  Wheat  and  In- 
dian corn  are  his  staple  food.  In  drinking,  he  is 
even  more  temperate,  confining  himself  to  water 
and  milk.  It  is  not  our  ideal  diet  for  a  martial 
folk;  but  what  shall  we  sa)'  when  we  come  to  his 
idea  of  a  "treat "?  Not  for  him  the  amber  ale  of 
the  canteen,  or  the  nut-brown  rum  associated 
with  splicing  the  main-brace.  Give  him  a  good 
junket  of  sweetmeats  or  treacle!  You  cannot 
offer  him  anything  he  appreciates  or  enjoys  more. 

In  short,  the  man-at-arms  of  modern  India  is 
no  longer  a  blustering,  blood-drinking,  pillaging 
freebooter,  but  a  temperate,  orderly,  well-behaved 
individual,  who  sends  a  great  portion  of  his  pay 
home  to  his  people  in  his  native  village,  or 


86  Indian  Life 

deposits  it  in  the  regimental  bank.  Notwithstand- 
ing, when  it  comes  to  the  day  of  battle,  you  shall 
find  him  not  a  whit  less  brave  than  those  heroic 
fighters  who  faced  the  English  at  Laswarrie,  So- 
braon,  and  Chillian wallah.  Under  British  officers 
there  are  few  tasks  he  will  not  attempt,  and  as  the 
Sikhs  proved  at  Saraghari,  the  Ghoorkas  at  Dar- 
gai,  and  many  of  the  other  races  in  the  brilliant 
military  annals  of  India,  Jack  Sepoy  is  a  first- 
rate  fighting-man. 

When  you  come  to  the  soldiery  of  the  native 
states,  there  is  another  tale  to  tell,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Imperial  Service  troops,  lately  intro- 
duced, who  are  as  fine  material  as  any  commander 
could  wish  to  lead.  For  the  rest,  the  rajahs'  ir- 
regulars fully  deserve  the  designation  of  rag-tag 
and  bob-tail  usually  applied  to  them,  and  in  a 
service  where  the  pay  is  not  only  poor,  but  pro- 
blematical, and  the  pension  to  seek,  they  are  apt 
to  degenerate  into  Jacks  in  Office  of  the  predatory 
sort.  But  they  serve  the  useful  purpose  of  re- 
minding us  what  the  man-at-arms  of  India  was  in 
the  past,  and  engender  a  pleasant  sense  of  satis- 
faction at  what  he  has  developed  into  under  British 
rule. 

So  much  for  the  administrative  and  military 
classes,  the  Jacks  in  Office  objectionable  and  un- 
objectionable, who  loom  large  in  the  eye,  although 
they  only  represent  a  minute  fraction  of  the  total 
population  of  India.  They  are  men  of  assured 
employment  and  pay,  and  by  reason  of  it  stand 


Men-at-Arms  and  Some  Others    87 

out  as  a  privileged  class.  The  Indian  Empire,  it 
must  be  remembered,  is  an  empire  of  paupers; 
nine  out  of  ten  are  agriculturists,  and  we  have 
seen  what  are  the  conditions  of  the  peasant's  life. 
The  trading  classes  can  be  passed  without  par- 
ticular description,  whilst  we  take  a  glance  at 
some  of  those  callings  which  are  indigenous  to 
the  soil,  and  have  an  established  place  in  the 
economy  of  daily  life  in  India. 

And  first  of  all  the  barber,  no  insignificant  per- 
sonage in  the  East,  where  every  man  is  obliged 
to  shave,  and  forbidden  by  his  religion  to  operate 
on  himself.  The  barber  has  an  official  appoint- 
ment in  the  Hindu  village,  with  an  endowment 
of  land  to  support  its  dignity,  and  a  vested  right 
to  the  shaving  of  its  inhabitants,  which  can  be 
protected  by  legal  injunction  in  case  of  infringe- 
ment. With  the  exception  of  a  few  races,  every 
native  of  India  shaves  his  head,  and  not  a  few  of 
them  their  faces.  Amongst  the  Hindus,  the  busi- 
ness is  compulsory,  for  sin  is  supposed  to  adhere 
to  the  hairs  of  the  head,  and  they  can  undertake 
no  religious  ceremony  or  rite  without  being  di- 
vested of  their  locks.  The  dead  are  always 
shaved  prior  to  cremation,  and  shaving  the  face 
by  the  survivors  is  the  outward  and  visible  sign 
of  mourning.  The  Mahomedan,  too,  shaves  his 
head  (leaving  a  tuft  for  the  Prophet  to  pull  him 
into  heaven  by)  but  never  his  chin,  although  he 
clips  his  moustache  close  to  his  upper  lip,  thereby 
often  spoiling  the  effect  of  a  magnificent  beard. 


88  Indian  Life 

The  Indian  barber  attends  his  customer,  not 
the  customer  the  barber's  shop.  This  carries  him 
into  the  home-life  of  the  people  in  a  way  which  is 
open  to  no  other  calling.  He  enjoys  an  even 
greater  reputation  for  gossip  than  the  barber  in 
other  countries,  and  might,  indeed,  be  termed  a 
peripatetic  "Daily  Male."  From  the  nature  of 
his  business,  he  has  become  the  matrimonial  agent 
of  the  East,  and,  with  his  wife,  arranges  most  of 
the  alliances,  being  the  accredited  go-between  and 
matchmaker  of  Hindustan.  He  is  skilful  with 
the  razor,  and  will  cut  your  nails,  clean  your  ears, 
and  manicure  you  after  his  fashion.  He  travels 
about  with  a  little  bag  under  his  arm,  containing 
his  instruments,  and  the  looking-glass,  which 
plays  a  most  important  part  in  his  profession. 
There  is  no  more  essential  personage  in  the  daily 
life  of  the  Bast  than  the  barber,  without  whose 
aid  the  marriage  market  would  languish,  and  the 
dead  carry  with  them  to  the  other  world  as  many 
sins  as  there  are  hairs  on  their  heads,  for  such  is 
the  superstition  of  Hinduism. 

Another  important  individual  is  the  astrologer, 
who  is  naturally  a  Brahmin,  and  often  the  family 
priest.  He,  too,  may  be  said  to  be  indispensable 
to  the  Hindu,  for  he  is  supposed  to  be  able  to 
avert  all  sorts  of  evil  influences  in  a  country  which 
is  crushed  by  superstition;  where  a  child  who 
accidentally  kicks  its  foot  against  a  stone  makes 
a  salaam  to  it  to  propitiate  the  evil  spirit,  and  the 
man  who  ascends  a  ladder  mutters  a  pious  prayer 


Men-at-Arms  and  Some  Others    89 

to  it  not  to  collapse  under  his  weight.  No  pru- 
dent Hindu  does  anything  material  without  first 
consulting  the  family  astrologer.  When  a  child 
is  born,  the  Brahmin  casts  its  horoscope;  when  a 
marriage  is  arranged,  he  fixes  the  auspicious  day 
and  hour;  when  a  journey  has  to  be  undertaken, 
he  advises  the  time  to  start;  and  he  has  his  say  in 
the  initiation  or  completion  of  every  important 
business.  In  marriages  especially,  he  is  a  despot, 
and  there  are  extended  periods  during  the  year 
when  no  Hindu  would  dream  of  marrying.  In 
his  priestly  character,  the  astrologer  blesses  houses 
and  wells,  consecrates  new  idols,  purifies  people 
who  have  accidentally  slipped  from  caste,  and 
officiates  at  weddings  and  funerals,  for  all  of  which 
he  draws  his  fees.  He  is  a  prodigious  humbug, 
who  earns  a  very  nice  income  by  charlatanism. 

We  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  ' '  humble  ' ' 
potter,  perhaps  because  he  works  with  mud.  But 
the  potter  in  India  is  an  artist,  and  there  are  three 
and  a  half  millions  in  the  land.  As  there  are 
men,  mustard  manufacturers  to  wit,  who  make 
their  fortunes  out  of  what  is  thrown  down  the 
sink,  so  the  Indian  potter  makes  much  of  his  live- 
lihood by  what  is  cast  on  the  dust-heap.  The 
poorer  class  natives  of  India  dine  off  the  rudest 
earthenware  platters,  and  there  is  a  caste  prejudice 
against  using  the  same  dish  twice,  which  creates 
an  immense  demand  for  cooking  pots  and  plates. 
Water  is  always  stored  in  pitchers,  and  we  know 
what  happens  to  the  pitcher  that  goes  to  the  well. 


90  Indian  Life 

The  Indian  pitcher  is  called  a  gurrah,  and  is  cir- 
cular-shaped, with  a  small  mouth.  It  contains 
as  much  water  as  you  would  ordinarily  care  to 
lift,  and  its  price  is  three  farthings  if  you  buy  a 
rupee's  worth,  or  a  penny  for  one.  Such  a  thing 
as  a  metal  water-can  was  practically  unknown  in 
India  until  within  the  last  decade,  when  the 
empty  five-gallon  kerosene-tin  has  been  adapted 
to  that  purpose,  much  to  the  prejudice  of  the  pot- 
ter. However,  he  has  a  monopoly  of  making  clay 
gods  and  roofing  tiles.  Sir  George  Birdwood,  in 
his  striking  book  on  the  Industrial  Arts  of  India, 
displays  an  enthusiasm  about  the  potter,  "  under 
whose  hand  the  shapeless  heap  of  clay  grows  into 
all  sorts  of  faultless  forms  of  archaic  fictile  art." 
The  potter  is  a  hereditary  village  officer,  and  re- 
ceives certain  very  comfortable  fees.  His  position 
is  respected,  and  he  enjoys  the  privilege  of  beating 
the  drum  at  merry-makings.  He  shares  with  the 
barber  a  useful  and  lucrative  place  in  the  com- 
munity, and  there  is  probably  no  member  of  it 
who  is  happier  in  his  lot,  and  less  liable  to  the 
vicissitudes  of  fortune. 

The  mention  of  the  drum  recalls  to  mind  the 
musicians  and  dancers  of  the  Bast,  who  are  in 
great  request  at  all  festivities.  The  dancing-girl 
will  be  dealt  with  in  another  chapter,  for  she 
deserves  more  than  an  incidental  notice.  The 
musical  artist  plays  upon  a  variety  of  instruments, 
skin,  string,  and  wind,  and  manages  to  evoke 
from  these,  sounds  that  convey  the  maximum  of 


Men-at-Arms  and  Some  Others    91 

discord  to  English  ears.  Performers  apparently 
derive  more  pleasure  from  beating  a  drum  than 
the  average  British  four-year-old  in  the  nursery. 
Moreover,  their  music,  such  as  it  is,  goes  on  for 
ever.  Having  engaged  his  band  of  musicians, 
the  Indian  employer  insists  on  having  his  money's 
worth.  The  Oriental  concert  lasts  as  long  as  a 
cricket  match.  Tomtoming  and  twangtwanging, 
varied  with  constant  and  inconsequent  blasts  from 
a  horn,  continue  from  morn  to  long  past  midnight. 
The  orchestra  sits  in  a  semicircle  on  the  ground 
with  stolid,  solemn  faces,  which  periodically  break 
out  into  terrifying  grimaces  as  they  expel  a  series 
of  notes  intended  to  be  song.  That  the  native  ear 
enjoys  it,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  but  it  is  equally 
certain  that  it  enjoys  English  music  played  out  of 
tune.  One  of  the  most  curious  importations  into 
India  is  what  is  known  in  England  as  the  ' '  Ger- 
man Band."  This  has  become  a  recognised  insti- 
tution in  the  East,  and  has  superseded  the  native 
one  as  being  more  noisy,  I  imagine,  and  more 
fashionable.  The  instruments,  with  the  exception 
of  the  drums,  are  all  of  brass,  and  there  is  a  de- 
cided partiality  for  those  which  assume  the  shapes 
of  antediluvian  monsters,  and  wind  about  the 
person.  I  remember  one  such  band  visiting  the 
jungle  I  resided  in  during  a  particularly  auspicious 
marriage  month.  Its  repertoire  consisted  of  four 
or  five  tunes,  which  it  repeated  with  a  maddening 
monotony,  and  all  out  of  tune.  A  very  favourite 
tune  with  these  wandering  minstrels  is  For  He  's  a 


92  Indian  Life 

Jolly  Good  Fellow,  and  another,  Yankee  Doodle, 
and  they  are  played  indiscriminately  at  marriages 
and  funerals.  The  social  status  of  the  musician 
is  low — which  it  decidedly  deserves  to  be. 

Entertainers  in  India  are  always  "on  tour,"  for 
there  are  no  fixed  places  of  amusement.  Con- 
jurers, acrobats,  monkey  men,  bear  leaders,  snake 
charmers,  perambulate  the  country,  picking  up  a 
precarious  living.  They  ' '  pitch  ' '  where  they 
can,  like  Punch  and  Judy  men.  I  do  not  remem- 
ber ever  to  have  seen  one  who  could  be  considered 
anything  but  a  beggar;  but  the  better  class  are 
probably  confined  to  the  palaces  of  the  rajahs 
and  the  houses  of  the  wealthy.  The  population 
is  too  practical  and  joyless  to  waste  money  on 
amusement;  the  native  never  gives  a  hearty 
laugh,  indeed,  it  is  a  breach  of  good  manners  to 
do  so.  How  shall  you  expect  him  to  pay  for  the 
pleasure  of  laughing  or  being  amused  ?  He  scorns 
delights;  nothing  shocks  his  sense  of  propriety  so 
much  as  a  ball,  and  he  calls  a  picnic  a  "  lunatic 
feed."  You  may  look  in  vain  throughout  India 
for  such  means  of  entertainment  as  a  picture- 
gallery,  a  music-hall,  a  promenade-pier,  a  recrea- 
tion-ground, a  magazine,  an  illustrated  or  comic 
paper,  a  pleasure-boat,  a  horse-race,  a  regatta,  or 
a  museum,  except  where  the  Englishman  has 
established  them.  These  things  are  quite  outside 
the  genius  of  the  people. 

The  native  Indian  doctor  is  a  quack  pure  and 
simple,  who  works  much  with  nostrums,  incanta- 


Men-at-Arms  and  Some  Others    93 

tious,  and  charms.  When  he  is  called  in,  it  is 
often  as  a  resident,  for  he  proceeds  to  take  up  his 
abode  in  the  patient's  house,  and  lives  there  as 
long  as  he  decently  can.  He  has  no  diploma  or 
qualification,  and  any  one  is  at  liberty  to  practise 
the  healing  art  if  he  can  get  patients.  His  re- 
putation is  made  by  word  of  mouth,  and  did  you 
analyse  the  result  of  his  practice,  you  would  prob- 
ably find  he  was  a  wholesale  manslaughterer.  In 
India,  no  death-certificate  is  required,  and  the 
coroner  is  unknown.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  hundreds  of  thousands  die  annually  from 
preventable  causes.  Cremation  follows  death  in 
twelve  hours  at  the  utmost,  often  in  three  or  four, 
and  inquests  are  impracticable.  Speedy  disposal 
of  the  dead  is  not  only  a  climatic  necessity  but  a 
religious  duty.  No  one  may  eat  whilst  a  corpse 
is  in  the  house.  Nay,  this  rule  is  extended  in 
some  cases,  and  in  my  plantation,  no  one  might 
eat  whilst  a  corpse  remained  within  the  boundaries 
of  it,  and,  when  one  of  my  coolies  died,  it  meant 
the  entire  establishment  fasting  until  he  was  car- 
ried out  to  be  burnt.  Under  such  conditions,  in- 
vestigation into  the  cause  of  death  is  impossible, 
and  when  you  add  to  them  the  privacy  of  the 
zenana  system  for  women,  you  arrive  at  a  pre- 
mium on  secret  assassination.  That  this  is  largely 
practised  in  India,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 

But  the  native  doctor  assassinates  openly,  and 
his  instrument  is  ignorance.  He  divides  all  mala- 
dies into  "  hot "  ones  and  "  cold  "  ones.  Bleeding 


94  Indian  Life 

is  as  favourite  a  remedy  with  him  as  it  was  in 
England  a  hundred  years  ago.  Every  native  of 
India,  well  or  ill,  is  periodically  bled,  and  would 
conceive  himself  in  mortal  danger  if  he  omitted  it. 
A  common  domestic  cure  for  a  headache  is  a 
plaster  of  cow-dung  smeared  over  the  forehead. 
There  are  many  useful  drugs  in  the  Indian  phar- 
macopoeia, but  quantity  rather  than  quality  seems 
to  appeal  to  the  native  mind.  I  have  often  been 
informed  with  pride  that  the  mixture  prescribed 
by  a  certain  baid  or  hakim  contained  ten,  fifteen, 
or  twenty  ingredients,  as  though  efficacy  lay  in 
numbers.  In  this  connection,  I  may  notice  one 
thing,  namely  the  quick  and  beneficial  effect 
medicine  has  on  the  vegetarian  constitution, 
which  seems  to  respond  to  treatment  much  more 
easily  than  that  of  the  flesh-eating  European.  I 
have  been  astounded  sometimes  at  the  ' '  cures ' ' 
effected  by  a  dose  of  chloradyne  and  a  mustard 
plaster,  which  seemed  to  ' '  touch  the  spot ' '  with 
miraculous  precision.  In  my  plantation,  I  dosed 
many  hundreds  of  coolies  for  many  years  with  not 
more  than  half  a  dozen  drugs,  and  though  I  have 
just  previously  referred  to  defunct  labourers,  I 
have  few  sad  memories  in  that  connection,  whilst, 
on  the  other  hand,  I  have  many  very  satisfactory 
recollections  of  men  restored  to  health  who  ap- 
peared far  more  ill  than  I  should  like  to  be. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  personage  in  India, 
if  you  bear  in  mind  the  influence  he  wields,  is  the 
village  headman.  The  village  system  is  com- 


Men-at-Arms  and  Some  Others    95 

munal,  and  the  lumberdar  or  patel  is  the  hered- 
itary functionary  who  governs  it.  He  is  the  link 
between  the  villagers  and  the  Government,  and 
collects  the  taxes,  on  which  he  draws  a  dustoorie 
of  five  per  cent.  He  has  many  privileges,  as  one 
in  authority,  and  makes  the  most  of  them;  but  if 
he  squeezes  where  he  can,  he  is,  on  the  whole, 
very  loyal  to  his  flock.  He  is  much  more  than  a 
tax-collector  or  a  mayor,  being  invested  with  a 
patriarchal  prestige,  and,  if  he  is  a  man  of  force 
of  character,  exerts  great  personal  influence.  In 
the  first  place,  he  is  the  recognised  mouthpiece  of 
the  community  he  governs;  then  he  is  called  in 
to  settle  disputes,  expected  to  entertain  strangers, 
and  the  effective  working  of  the  village  machinery 
depends  upon  him.  His  charity  is  frequently  en- 
croached upon  to  relieve  the  needy.  For  another 
of  the  anomalies  of  India  is  that,  although  it  is 
the  poorest  country  in  the  British  Empire,  and 
boasts  a  civilisation  two  thousand  years  old,  there 
is  absolutely  no  provision  for  the  poor  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  The  charita- 
ble instinct  of  the  people  is  the  only  thing  that 
stands  between  its  poor,  its  aged,  its  infirm,  and 
death  by  starvation .  Only  when  a  famine  scourges 
the  land  does  Government  grant  any  ' '  relief, ' ' 
and  in  this  Empire  of  paupers  there  is  not  such  a 
thing  as  a  poorhouse! 

Whereby  begging  has  become  a  recognised  in- 
stitution and  sometimes  a  lucrative  profession  in 
India.  The  poor  and  needy  we  may  pass  over 


96  Indian  Life 

with  the  remark  that  they  are  desperately  poor 
and  pathetically  needy.  The  crippled  and  de- 
formed require  notice.  Such  loathsome  and  ter- 
rible sights  as  you  may  see  are  too  horrible  to 
attempt  to  describe.  Peihaps  the  worst  of  all  are 
the  lepers,  who  infest  the  highways,  and  when 
they  fail  in  obtaining  compassion  have  a  power 
of  compulsion  in  cursing;  for  a  "  leper's  curse" 
is  a  calamity  few  will  dare  to  encounter,  and  the 
leper  vituperates  roundly  when  he  conceives  he 
has  a  cause. 

Apart  from  those  miserable  creatures  who  owe 
their  deformities  or  diseases  to  Providence,  there 
is  a  large  class  who  maim  and  deform  themselves 
in  the  name  of  religion,  and  trade  upon  their  de- 
formities. You  see  them  in  thousands  at  the 
places  of  pilgrimage,  with  shrivelled  limbs, 
withered  from  deliberate  disuse,  and  other  in- 
credibly dreadful  contortions,  contractions,  and 
deformities.  These  are  not  impostors,  but  men 
who  have  wittingly  maimed  themselves  and 
thereby  incurred  a  certain  character  for  sanctity. 
The  tortures  they  must  have  endured  before  the 
limb  dried  up  from  disuse,  or  the  finger-nail  grew 
through  the  palm,  or  the  uplifted  arm  was  stiffened 
in  its  posture  above  the  head,  appeal  vividly  to  the 
charitable  eye,  and  represent  their  stock-in-trade 
as  professional  beggars.  Kings  amongst  them 
are  the  fakirs,  and  other  religious  mendicants, 
who  clothe  their  nakedness  in  ashes,  roam  the 
land  in  thousands,  and  batten  on  the  superstition 


Men-at-Arms  and  Some  Others    97 

of  the  people.  These  have  no  self-inflicted  de- 
formity to  parade;  inherent  holiness  is  their  cue, 
and  their  craft  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  weak- 
ness of  womankind.  Impudent,  lazy,  good-for- 
nothing  rogues,  many  of  them  grow  fat,  and  do 
far  worse  things  in  the  course  of  their  abominable 
careers,  practising  their  arts  and  seductions,  and 
under  the  specious  guise  of  asceticism  living  the 
lives  of  debauchees  and  blackmailers. 

India  is  a  strange  country  of  contrasts;  and  one 
of  the  strangest  of  them  is  the  stark  poverty  of  the 
starving,  industrious  peasant,  and  the  sleek  im- 
pudence of  the  lazy,  improvident  beggar,  who 
masquerades  as  a  holy  man  and  lives  comfortably 
on  the  charity  of  the  neediest  nation  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  VII 

LADIES  I,AST 

"  T    ADIES  first,"  we  say  in  the  West ;  in  the 
L,     East  it  is  "  Ladies  last."     That  sums  up 
succinctly  the  difference  in  the  domestic  ideas  of 
the  two  civilisations. 

There  are  one  hundred  and  forty  millions  of  wo- 
men in  India,  and  their  sphere  is  the  backyard. 
This  is  literally  correct  of  about  ten  millions,  and 
metaphorically  so  of  the  rest.  They  are  not  even 
accorded  a  back  seat  in  society,  for  in  the  presence 
of  men  they  are  not  permitted  to  be  seated.  The 
whole  duly  of  woman  is  to  worship  and  wait  upon 
her  husband  (who  is  her  lord  and  master  in  its 
most  exacting  sense),  and  to  bear  him  sons.  In 
some  classes,  she  had  better  be  barren  than  bear 
only  daughters.  And  if  she  is  a  high-caste  Hindu, 
the  very  wisest  thing  she  can  do  is  to  die  when 
her  husband  does,  for  after  that  she  becomes  a 
cursed  superfluity  in  the  community.  This  again 
is  literal. 

Five  sixths  of  the  upper  ten  millions  of  Indian 
women  live  secluded  in  hareem  or  zenana;   the 
terms  are  synonymous  for  the  "women's  quar- 
98 


Ladies  Last  99 

ters,"  but  the  former  is  only  applied  to  Mahome- 
dan  households.  No  male,  except  the  woman's 
husband,  father-in-law,  and  brothers-in-law,  ever 
passes  the  threshold  of  this  privacy,  therefore  no 
European,  except  a  woman,  can  write  about  it, 
except  from  second-hand.  An  Englishman  may 
spend  twenty  years  in  India  and  not  see  the  faces 
of  twenty  zenana  women,  and  then  only  by  acci- 
dent. The  most  he  will  be  able  to  observe  is  their 
be-ringed  toes  in  transit,  as  when  they  are  smug- 
gled, with  prodigious  caution,  out  of  a  litter  into 
a  railway-carriage,  veiled  almost  to  suffocation, 
or  with  curtains  held  up  round  about  them  like 
little  perambulating  bathing-tents.  In  some  Ma- 
homedan  cities,  streets  have  been  cleared  for  the 
passage  of  dames  of  high  degree,  and  there  are 
authentic  cases  of  high-class  Mahomedans  having 
killed  their  wives  because  their  faces  were  ac- 
cidentally exposed  to  a  fellow-man.  Some  Blue- 
beard Hindus  have  done  as  much  to  theirs  by  way 
of  precaution. 

There  are  races  that  do  not  seclude  their  women- 
folk, and  castes  who  allow  theirs  more  or  less  free- 
dom; the  masses  have  a  great  deal  too  much  work 
for  their  wives  to  do  to  permit  them  the  luxury 
of  seclusion.  But  whether  free  or  confined  in 
hareem  or  zenana,  it  is  always  "  ladies  last." 

The  custom  of  secluding  women  is  of  Mahome- 
dan  origin,  and  its  adoption  was  forced  on  the 
Hindus  after  the  conquest  of  India  by  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  Prophet,  who  were  sad  rakes.  The 


ioo  Indian  Life 

system  is  now  firmly  rooted  amongst  the  higher 
castes,  and  some,  in  particular,  are  insanely  jealous 
about  the  privacy  of  their  wives.  There  is  no 
chivalry  in  India,  and  a  dastard  want  of  con- 
fidence in  the  chastity  of  his  womankind  is  the 
most  contemptible  national  trait  of  the  average 
native.  Every  right-minded  Englishman  would 
itch  to  kick  the  Hindu  or  Mahomedan  who  put 
into  language  his  views  about  the  weaker  sex. 

The  inferiority  and  infirmity  of  woman  is  a  part 
of  the  Mahomedan' s  creed.  He  has  no  respect  for 
her,  and  the  heaven  he  hopes  to  win  is  peopled 
with  mythical  houris,  who  are  young  and  beauti- 
ful damsels.  The  white-bearded  patriarch  looks 
forward  to  meeting  these,  not  the  wife  who  may 
have  been  his  faithful  partner  for  a  lifetime.  The 
indulgence  of  an  unbounded  sensuality  is  the  Ma- 
homedan's  highest  reward  in  a  future  state.  In 
his  present  existence,  self-gratification  is  tempered 
by  circumstances.  The  Koran  allows  him  four 
wives  at  a  time,  and  divorce  at  pleasure.  But 
the  economics  of  population  and  the  expense  of 
matrimony  make  general  polygamy  impracticable, 
and  only  about  five  per  cent,  of  the  Mahomedans 
of  India  have  more  than  one  wife.  But  whether 
one  or  four,  she  or  they  are  mere  chattels  and  in- 
struments of  their  husband's  pleasure.  In  his 
treatment  and  assessment  of  the  sex,  you  may 
measure  the  standard  of  his  moral  conceptions. 

The  sexual  status  of  the  Hindu  woman  is  even 
worse  than  that  of  her  Mahomedan  sister.  The 


Ladies  Last  101 

Institutes  of  Manu,  the  great  lawgiver  of  Hindu- 
ism, define  her  position  very  clearly.  The  wife  is 
the  marital  property  of  the  husband,  and  is  classi- 
fied with  cows,  mares,  she-camels,  buffalo  cows, 
she- goats,  and  ewes.  She  is  not  accounted  worthy 
of  separate  holy  rites,  fasts,  or  ceremonies  in  a 
religion  which  is  compounded  of  them.  All  she 
has  to  do  is  literally  to  worship  her  husband,  who 
is  repeated!}'  described  as  a  virtuous  woman's  god. 
The  husband,  on  the  other  hand,  is  enjoined  "not 
to  love  his  wife  too  much,"  but  only  to  let  her 
have  that  degree  of  affection  which  is  necessary. 
"The  fulness  of  affection  must  be  reserved  for 
brothers  and  other  similar  connections." 

It  redounds  to  the  credit  of  the  Hindu  woman 
that  in  the  face  of  these  demoralising  and  degrad- 
ing limitations  she  should  be  affectionate,  faithful, 
chaste,  industrious,  obedient,  patient,  forgiving, 
long-suffering,  and  cheerful.  I  cull  this  list  of 
domestic  virtues  from  the  mouths  of  her  own 
mankind,  who  praise  and  imprison  her  in  the 
same  breath.  From  other  sources  I  gather  that, 
in  the  upper  classes,  she  is  often  vain,  frivolous, 
idle,  gluttonous,  jealous,  intriguing,  and  mali- 
cious. These  detractions  may  probably  be  ascribed 
as  much  to  the  system  as  to  the  woman. 

The  women  who  are  immured  in  hareents  and 
zenanas  are  known  as  purdah-nashin.  To  be  a 
purdah-woman  carries  a  certain  distinction  with 
it.  It  is  an  inference  of  wealth  and  respectability, 
and  a  man's  social  standing  in  his  own  class 


102  Indian  Life 

depends  a  good  deal  on  whether  he  can  afford  to 
keep  his  womenfolk  secluded  or  not.  In  some 
castes,  where  it  is  not  enforced  by  custom,  there  is 
a  tendency  to  "affect  zenana  seclusion."  The 
women  themselves  are  said  to  take  a  pride  in  it, 
as  the  Chinese  ladies  do  in  contracted  feet,  and 
where,  through  a  reverse  of  fortune,  zenana  ladies 
have  been  compelled  to  abandon  the  purdah  to 
seek  their  livelihood,  it  has  been  as  a  parting  from 
respectability.  And  yet,  in  our  Western  view  of 
things,  zenana  life  may  be  likened  to  imprison- 
ment in  the  second  class.  It  is  confinement  of 
the  most  rigorous  description,  coupled  with  segre- 
gation of  sex,  and  deprivation  of  air,  exercise,  so- 
ciety, occupation,  and  scene.  But  in  India,  it  is 
certainly  genteel,  not  to  say  obligatory,  for  most 
who  adopt  it. 

And  we  have  a  consensus  of  men's  opinion  in 
declaring  that  these  poor  captives  are  not  un- 
happy. Even  lady-missionaries  have  admitted  as 
much.  The  stale,  stock  simile  of  the  caged  canary 
is  quoted,  and  we  are  told  that  absolute  ignorance 
of  what  they  lose  by  confinement  prevents  any 
hardship  in  it.  Perhaps  it  is  so;  there  are  worse 
fates  than  that  of  the  well-to-do  zenana  wife,  as 
we  shall  come  to  see. 

Of  course  we  hear  of  unhappiness  in  the  zenana, 
but  it  is  nearly  always  attributable  to  causes  other 
than  the  misery  of  physical  confinement.  At  the 
same  time,  we  are  told  the  life  develops  and  stimu- 
lates the  worst  passions,  and  gives  rise  to  intrigue, 


Ladies  Last  103 

jealous}7,  envy,  and  murderous  hate.  Mrs.  Bishop, 
the  well-known  traveller,  relates  how  she  had  been 
asked  more  than  a  hundred  times  by  inmates  of 
zenanas  for  drugs  to  be  used  for  disfiguring  rival 
wives  or  killing  their  offspring.  Crime  is  safe 
and  easy  in  the  zenana,  for  even  the  law  halts  on 
the  threshold,  and  where  the  husband's  favour 
comprehends  the  entire  creed  of  the  wife,  poly- 
gamy cannot  fail  to  be  fruitful  of  envy,  hatred, 
malice,  and  all  uncharitableness. 

Enforced  or  voluntary  idleness,  absence  of  occu- 
pation, and  want  of  education  are  greater  factors 
for  evil  than  deprivation  of  physical  freedom.  In 
the  higher  ranks  of  life,  the  zenana  lady  lives  a 
stagnant  existence,  and  dress  and  jewels  absorb 
most  of  her  time  and  attention.  It  is  a  curious 
thing  that,  although  she  may  never  be  seen  in 
public,  and  has  no  opportunities  to  display  her 
charms,  she  takes  an  engrossing  interest  in  her 
personal  appearance.  Rouge,  menddhal,  colly- 
rium,  and  other  cosmetics  are  common  in  a  hareem, 
and  the  examination  of  garments  and  ornaments 
is  the  first  and  almost  the  sole  form  of  entertain- 
ment when  visiting  or  receiving  women  friends. 

That  life,  under  such  circumstances,  becomes 
demoralising  goes  without  saying.  The  zenana 
woman  is  mentally  and  physically  stunted  and 
crippled.  From  year's  end  to  year's  end  a  small 
sun-baked  court  in  the  day  is  the  only  place  in 
which  she  can  obtain  any  exercise,  and  in  city 
life  her  promenade  is  often  confined  to  the  flat 


104  Indian  Life 

roof  of  the  house.  No  chance  of  physical  de- 
velopment is  hers,  and  the  Indian  lady  is  always 
weakly,  and  often  sickly.  Consumption  is  a  com- 
mon disease.  To  be  required  to  walk  any  dis- 
tance is  an  actual  hardship;  when  it  is  possible 
most  ladies  are  carried  in  litters,  and  if  compelled 
to  use  their  own  feet  have  a  peculiar  shuffling 
walk  that  betokens  incapacity.  Their  mental  de- 
velopment is  equally  restricted,  and  there  is  no 
ignorance  so  profound,  no  inexperience  of  the 
alphabet  of  practical  life  so  pitiful,  as  theirs.  At 
the  age  of  thirty,  their  intellectual  attainments  are 
less  than  those  of  children.  They  cannot  read, 
their  range  of  observation  is  limited  to  their  prison 
boundaries,  and  the  outer  world  is  absolutely  un- 
known to  them.  Their  conversation  is  inane  and 
frivolous,  and  reflects  the  emptiness  of  their 
minds.  Their  husbands  confine  their  discourse 
with  them  to  domestic  affairs,  carefully  avoiding 
every  topic  that  requires  the  exertion  of  reason, 
and  the  result,  in  the  words  of  one  such  husband, 
is  "  a  supine  vacuity  of  thought." 

The  hareem  has  often  been  called  a  gilded  cage; 
here  is  a  description  of  one,  and  the  fine  lady  who 
inhabited  it.  It  was  sumptuously  furnished  with 
the  richest  and  costliest  rugs  and  pillows;  the 
divans  were  draped  in  different  coloured  silks  to 
suit  the  season;  the  vessels  for  eating  and  drink- 
ing were  of  gold  and  silver,  and  the  bathroom 
lined  with  full-length  mirrors.  The  lady  was 
bathed  four  or  five  times  a  day,  and  used  the  most 


Ladies  Last  105 

expensive  soaps  and  perfumes  to  preserve  her 
beauty.  Her  powder  boxes  were  of  silver,  and 
those  for  her  eyebrow  powder  of  gold;  her  toilet 
table  was  covered  with  silver  slabs.  Her  collec- 
tion of  jewels  contained  every  known  gem.  She 
spent  her  time  in  devising  new  ornaments,  and  in 
rich  eating.  Au  reste,  she  did  not  know  her  let- 
ters, and  was  utterly  incapable  of  attending  to  her 
commonest  wants. 

This,  of  course,  was  a  grande  dame.  In  the  less 
favoured  ranks,  the  apartments  are  more  often 
than  not  squalid,  the  walls  and  floors  merely 
smeared  with  cow-dung  plaster,  and  dirt  and  the 
olfactory  evidence  of  bad  sanitation  everywhere 
present.  The  courtyard,  into  which  the  rooms 
open  out,  is  filled  with  the  sheds  wherein  the 
cattle  are  kept,  and  the  "  cage"  is  a  dark,  drear, 
unwholesome  place  to  pass  a  lifetime  in.  There 
are  zenana  wives  who  have  never  left  their  hus- 
bands' houses  from  the  time  they  entered  them  as 
brides,  until  they  were  grandmothers.  Conceive 
what  that  means — a  life  without  a  walk  in  the 
open  air!  Where  the  system  is  obligatory  and  the 
husband  poor,  the  zenana  is  a  prison  too  terrible 
to  contemplate. 

When  you  get  to  those  classes  which  permit 
their  womenfolk  freedom,  the  physical  improve- 
ment is  at  once  apparent.  The  Indian  woman 
who  is  not  confined  is  renowned  for  her  grace; 
she  is  supple,  elegant,  erect,  and,  where  she  is 
called  upon  to  exercise  her  physical  powers, 


io6  Indian  Life 

strong.  In  the  labouring  ranks  of  life  her  powers 
of  endurance  are  marvellous.  In  the  rice-growing 
districts,  you  may  see  the  peasant  women  toiling 
from  sunrise  to  sunset,  knee-deep  in  the  noisome 
slush,  weeding  their  crops.  Their  primitive 
standard  of  civilisation  includes  many  duties  as- 
signed to  women,  such  as  husking  rice,  carrying 
loads,  using  the  hoe,  and  chopping  wood,  which 
entail  terribly  hard  labour.  As  carriers,  they  are 
able  to  bear  extraordinary  burdens,  and  amongst 
the  hill  women  of  the  Himalayas  are  individuals 
capable  of  phenomenal  feats.  I  have  frequently 
seen  them  toiling  along  under  a  load  of  a  hundred- 
weight and  a  half,  and  there  is  a  record  of  one 
Thibetan  woman  who  carried  a  cottage  piano  on 
her  back  up  a  steep  ascent  of  three  thousand  feet, 
to  deliver  it  at  a  house  in  the  sanatorium  of  Dar- 
jeeling.  In  agricultural  and  kindred  pursuits,  the 
women  take  their  share,  and  often  more  than 
their  share,  of  the  labour  of  men.  What  his  wife 
can  do,  that  the  native  husband  will  always  make 
her  do. 

Maternity  comes  easy  to  the  peasant's  wife.  I 
remember  the  case  of  a  woman  starting  off,  as  she 
believed,  the  day  before  her  confinement  was  due, 
to  go  to  her  parents'  home.  The  distance  was 
twenty  miles,  and  she  carried  her  baggage  with 
her,  though  that  does  not  ordinarily  comprehend 
more  than  a  blanket  and  a  water-vessel.  Half- 
way on  the  road  to  her  home  she  was  taken  with 
the  pangs  of  labour,  gave  birth  to  a  child,  and 


Ladies  Last  107 

then,  thinking  it  not  worth  while  to  pursue  her 
journey,  returned  to  where  she  had  started  from. 
She  was  the  wife  of  one  of  my  grooms,  and  I  can 
vouch  for  this  story  as  absolutely  correct. 

Notwithstanding  the  comparative  freedom  they 
enjoy,  the  instinct  of  reserve  remains  very  marked, 
even  in  the  lowest  grades  of  women.  I  never 
remember  to  have  been  addressed  first  by  one, 
though  I  employed  many  hundreds  on  my  plan- 
tation. On  pay  days,  when  they  had  to  come  up 
for  their  wages,  the  veriest  old  harridan  would 
veil  her  face  with  her  sari  and  take  her  money 
quite  coyly.  Although  amazing  chatterboxes 
amongst  themselves,  they  are  silent,  or  at  most 
monosyllabic,  in  men's  company.  In  meeting 
men  on  the  road,  they  instinctively  turn  their 
heads  from  view;  but  what  is  a  gentle,  well-bred 
timidity  in  the  high-caste  woman,  assumes  a  sort 
of  foolish  shamefacedness  in  her  humbler  sister, 
the  result  of  conscious  sexual  inferiority. 

A  woman  may  not  walk  by  the  side  of  her  hus- 
band, but  only  follow  respectfully  behind  him; 
she  may  not  eat  with  him,  but  must  content  her- 
self with  his  leavings  after  he  has  finished.  If  he 
fasts,  the  good  wife  ought  to  fast  too.  She  must 
not  speak  with  him  in  the  society  of  others,  nor 
may  he  notice  her.  In  mixed  company,  the 
man's  wife  is  the  last  female  you  would  take  to 
be  such,  if  you  regarded  their  mutual  relations. 
She  must  never  presume  to  pronounce  his  name; 
he  is  always  "  my  lord,"  or  "  my  master."  She 


io8  Indian  Life 

has  absolutely  no  part  in  society;  she  may  not 
make  herself  heard;  she  has  no  opinion;  she  may 
not  seat  herself  in  the  company  of  men.  It  is  a 
gross  breach  of  etiquette  to  ask  a  husband  how 
his  wife  is.  "  How  is  your  house?  "  is  the  limit 
of  courtesy  even  amongst  old  friends.  Abject 
submission  at  home  has  created  in  the  woman  a 
sense  of  helplessness  and  bewilderment  abroad. 
She  is  as  "  lost "  as  a  nun  might  be.  The  custom 
which  prescribes  her  conduct  towards  her  husband 
is  far  stricter  in  its  regulation  of  her  behaviour  to- 
wards others  of  his  sex.  "  Whether  a  woman  be 
old  or  young,"  lays  down  Manu,  the  lawgiver, 
"  she  must  ever  be  dependent.  In  her  childhood, 
she  must  be  in  subjection  to  her  parents;  in  her 
youth,  to  her  husband;  and  in  her  old  age,  to  her 
children."  And  from  highest  to  lowest,  from 
purdah-nashin  to  peasant  wench,  this  rule  of  life 
is  inflexibly  adhered  to.  It  is  ladies  last  and 
ladies  least  in  every  grade  of  society. 

The  patriarchal  system  obtains  in  India,  and 
the  sons  when  they  marry  bring  their  wives  home 
to  the  paternal  roof,  whilst  the  daughters  go  forth 
to  live  in  their  husbands'  homes.  You  may  often 
see  three  or  four  generations  under  one  roof,  and 
no  Indian  wife  is  mistress  of  her  home  till  all  her 
elders  have  died  off.  All  Indian  girls  are  mar- 
ried when  they  are  quite  children,  and  are  either 
wives  or  widows  before  they  are  fourteen.  Their 
marriage  is  a  complete  dissolution  of  their  home 
ties,  and  opens  the  door  to  an  absolutely  new  life. 


Ladies  Last  109 

In  the  higher  castes,  the  father  may  not  visit  his 
daughter's  home,  especially  where  he  has  dowered 
her.  I  have  heard  a  man  assert  with  satisfaction 
that  he  had  not  even  drunk  water  from  the  well 
of  the  village  in  which  his  daughter  had  gone  to 
make  her  home. 

A  native  wedding  is  a  tremendous  affair.  It 
often  means  years  of  debt  and  difficulty,  for  the 
native  is  nothing  if  he  is  not  prodigal  on  these 
occasions.  All  his  thrifty  qualities  go  by  the 
board  in  one  hurricane  of  extravagance,  and  it  is 
a  case  of  in  for  a  penny,  in  for  a  pound,  for  this 
is  an  occasion  when  no  one  dare  be  niggardly. 
Here,  again,  the  curse  of  "custom  "  creeps  in,  for 
these  lavish  displays  cannot  be  defended  by  any 
rational  argument. 

Every  one  is  invited,  and  there  are  dinners  for 
all;  nay,  in  some  cases,  seven  dinners  all  round. 
The  Brahmins  have  to  be  fed  and  fee'd,  musicians 
and  dancing- girls  hired,  fireworks  to  be  exploded, 
rich  gifts  to  be  provided,  dowries  to  be  scraped 
together,  trousseaux  to  be  given  which  shall  bear 
the  test  of  woman's  criticism,  and  litters  or  horses 
hired  to  carry  the  bride  and  bridegroom. 

This  is  the  one  supreme  day  in  the  life  of  an 
Indian  woman.  Ever  since  she  could  understand, 
she  has  been  taught  to  look  forward  to  it.  It  is 
associated  in  her  mind  with  all  that  is  glorious 
and  grand.  She  is  arrayed  in  the  splendour  of 
vivid  colours  and  tinsel;  attention  is  paid  to  her; 
for  once  in  her  life  she  is  "  somebody." 


no  Indian  Life 

And  her  marriage  vows  ?  Listen  to  what  the 
sacred  Hindu  books  say:  "  There  is  no  other  god 
on  earth  for  a  woman  except  her  husband.  Be 
he  deformed,  aged,  infirm,  diseased,  offensive  in 
manners,  choleric,  debauched,  immoral,  a  drunk- 
ard, a  gambler,  a  lunatic,  blind,  deaf,  dumb,  or 
crippled;  in  a  word,  let  his  defects  and  wicked- 
ness be  what  they  may,  a  wife  should  lavish  on 
him  all  her  attention."  That  is  the  risk  every 
Hindu  girl  has  to  accept  with  a  stranger  before 
she  is  twelve  years  old.  After  her  wedding,  she 
returns  to  her  father's  house  until  she  is  physi- 
cally old  enough  to  go  to  her  husband's. 

The  Mahomedan  girl's  life  is  somewhat  better, 
for  she  is  not  married  until  she  is  of  an  age  to  join 
her  husband.  Moreover,  she  has  certain  ' '  rights, ' ' 
one  of  which  is  the  power  to  divorce  her  husband. 
Also,  she  may  marry  again.  But  neither  Hindu 
nor  Mahomedan  brides  have  the  slightest  voice  in 
the  selection  of  their  spouses. 

In  all  India,  there  is  only  one  class  of  women 
which  emerges  from  the  fetters  of  ignorance, 
reserve,  and  abject  submission.  This  is  the 
nautch-girl,  or  dancing-girl.  She  is  a  professional 
prostitute  and  public  entertainer.  It  is  necessary  to 
educate  her  to  fit  her  for  her  profession  and  duties, 
and  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  she  can  read.  She  is 
early  instructed  in  this,  and  also  in  singing  and 
dancing,  and  all  the  accomplishments.  She  begins 
to  chant  lewd  songs  as  soon  as  she  has  finished 
prattling,  and  for  centuries  has  enjoyed  the  sole 


Ladies  Last  m 

monopoly  of  education  amongst  Indian  woman- 
kind. And— can  it  be  believed  ?— the  nautch-girl 
has  not  only  a  recognised,  but  an  exalted,  place  in 
the  religious  and  social  life  of  the  Hindus.  No  dis- 
credit attaches  to  her  calling,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
a  great  deal  of  folat.  She  is  considered  a  neces- 
sary adjunct  in  the  temple  and  the  home.  Her 
presence  at  weddings  is  auspicious,  and  she  it 
is  who  fastens  the  wedding-necklace  round  the 
bride's  neck,  an  act  which  corresponds  to  the  plac- 
ing of  the  wedding-ring  with  us.  In  her  profes- 
sional capacity,  she  is  invited  to  all  native  festivals, 
and  to  entertainments  given  in  honour  of  guests. 
To  patronise  her  is  considered  meritorious,  and 
she  fills  a  place  in  the  Hindu  religion  correspond- 
ing to  that  which  the  nun  holds  in  Christianity, 
for  she  is  consecrated  to  one  or  other  of  the  impure 
Hindu  deities.  A  proverbial  saying  declares  that 
without  the  jingling  of  the  nautch-girl's  anklets 
a  dwelling-place  does  not  become  pure! 

She  is  a  beautiful  abomination  who  has  lured 
thousands,  and  will  lure  thousands  more,  to  ruin. 
Attractive,  pleasing,  and  witty  in  conversation, 
she  is  the  most  accomplished  of  courtesans,  and 
specially  educated  to  play  havoc  with  men's 
morals  and  money.  She  is  treated  by  all  castes 
with  the  utmost  deference,  and  even  allowed  to 
sit  in  the  assemblies  of  the  great  by  men  who 
would  not  permit  their  own  wives  and  daughters 
a  similar  honour.  She  moves  more  freely  in  so- 
ciety than  public  women  in  civilised  countries  are 


ii2  Indian  Life 

allowed  to  do,  and  greater  attention  and  respect 
are  shown  to  her  than  to  married  women.  In 
some  parts  of  India,  she  is  treated  with  the  dis- 
tinction of  a  princess. 

The  earnings  of  these  dancing-girls  are  enorm- 
ous. In  Bombay  the  "star"  nautch-girls  com- 
mand a  fee  of  fifty  pounds  for  a  single  night's 
performance.  Aristocratic  families  lavish  their 
wealth  on  them,  and  a  British  viceroy,  who  was 
memorialised  by  the  Hindu  Social  Reform  Asso- 
ciation to  discountenance  them  on  the  grounds 
that  they  were  ' '  professional  prostitutes,  lowered 
the  tone  of  society,  tended  to  destroy  family  life, 
and  brought  ruin  to  property  and  character" 
— a  British  viceroy  answered  that  "  he  had  seen 
nothing  objectionable  in  the  nautches  he  had  wit- 
nessed ;  they  were  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of 
the  country,  and  he  declined  to  take  any  action." 
Truly,  great  is  "  custom,"  and  it  will  prevail! 

To  these  educated  courtesans,  the  Hindu  gentle- 
man habitually  turns  when  he  desires  the  com- 
panionship his  own  home  cannot  supply.  And, 
be  it  noted,  without  any  stigma  or  suspicion  of 
wrong-doing.  The  nautch-girls  are  the  only  wo- 
men who  move  freely  in  men's  society  in  India; 
they  are  the  women  who  are  honoured  and  courted 
most;  for  them  alone  is  education  decreed.  They 
are  the  queens  of  native  society.  It  is  a  salient 
commentary  on  the  domestic  life  of  the  Indian 
Empire  that  the  woman  who  comes  last  in  the 
British  estimate  of  the  sex  comes  first  in  theirs. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
WOMAN'S  WRONGS 

WOMAN'S  Rights"  is  the  unabashed  de- 
mand of  the  New  Woman  in  the  West; 
"  Woman's  Wrongs"  is  the  whispered  appeal  of 
the  few  who  dare  ventilate  the  subject  in  the  Hast, 
where  native  social  reformers  have  been  outcasted 
and  excommunicated  for  striving  to  improve  the 
domestic  position  of  the  weaker  sex.  Those  two 
cries  crystallise  the  contrast  between  the  women 
of  the  two  worlds.  Up  to  now,  we  have  been  con- 
templating woman's  life  in  India  from  its  best 
point  of  view — the  virtuous  wife  not  discontented 
with  her  lot,  the  accomplished  courtesan  queening 
it  in  society.  Each  in  her  lights  and  in  her  sphere 
is  to  be  reckoned  fortunate  and  happy.  We  now 
pass  to  the  consideration  of  darker  pictures. 

There  are  four  hideous  horrors  in  the  treatment 
accorded  to  the  female  sex  in  India — child-mar- 
riage, enforced  widowhood,  compulsory  prostitu- 
tion, fostered  by  religion,  and  infanticide  confined 
to  female  infants.  In  comparison  with  the  three 
former,  the  latter  may  almost  be  said  to  be 

humane. 
s 

113 


1 1 4-  Indian  Life 

Infanticide  is  daughter-slaughter,  and  is  chiefly 
practised  by  the  rajpoots,  who  have  a  reputation 
for  chivalry  towards  women!  It  is  a  direct  out- 
come of  caste  and  custom,  and  an  act  of  callous 
selfishness.  The  Hindu  religion  makes  the  mar- 
riage of  a  daughter  obligatory,  and  threatens  the 
parents  with  the  most  dire  punishment  if  it  is 
postponed  after  the  year  of  puberty — punishment 
on  a  par  with  other  Hindu  religious  penalties, 
which  ordinarily  include  disgrace  in  this  life  and 
several  million  years  in  hell  in  the  next.  In  the 
case  of  the  rajpoot,  the  social  rule  requires  him 
to  procure  as  a  husband  for  his  daughter  a  man 
of  a  higher  clan  than  his  own.  This  is  often 
difficult,  and  always  expensive.  The  payment  of 
a  large  dowry  can  be  avoided  only  by  incurring 
the  stigma  of  an  inferior  alliance,  against  which 
the  abnormal  rajpoot  pride  revolts.  He  cuts  the 
Gordian  knot  by  the  simple  process  of  killing  his 
infant  daughter,  either  by  strangling  at  birth, 
giving  her  an  opium  pill,  covering  the  mother's 
nipple  with  poison  to  be  taken  in  with  the  first 
sustenance,  or  by  neglect  and  starvation.  Under 
native  rule  the  practice  was  universal ;  under  the 
British  Government  it  has  been  greatly  reduced, 
but  has  not  disappeared  altogether.  A  writer  in 
1818  mentions  that  amongst  the  offspring  of  eight 
thousand  rajpoots  in  a  particular  district  there 
were  probably  not  more  than  thirty  females  living 
of  the  same  caste  or  clan  as  the  men.  When  the 
Infanticide  Act  of  1890  was  passed,  the  worst  case 


Woman's  Wrongs  115 

quoted,  as  proving  its  necessity,  was  that  of  a 
tribe  where  the  proportion  of  girls  to  boys  alive 
was  eight  to  eighty.  In  one  district  several  hund- 
red children  were  returned  as  ' '  carried  off  by 
wolves,"  all  of  whom  were  girls!  The  difficulty 
of  the  detection,  and  through  it  the  prevention, 
of  this  crime  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  murderer  un- 
doubtedly possesses  the  sympathy  of  his  fellow- 
caste  men.  The  death  of  a  daughter,  before  the 
expense  of  marrying  her  has  to  be  incurred,  is  a 
matter  for  devout  thankfulness  and  cordial  con- 
gratulation in  many  cases. 

Thus  we  see  that  woman's  wrongs  in  India  be- 
gin with  her  birth,  when  she  is  sometimes  killed, 
and  assuredly  never  welcomed.  The  next  in- 
justice is  the  disposal  of  her  person  in  childhood, 
which  does  not  always  take  the  form  of  marrying 
her  to  a  husband.  The  Hindu  religion  requires 
brides  for  the  idols  who  represent  its  deities. 
They  are  called  Devidasis,  Muralis,  and  other 
names,  and  their  duties  are  to  dance  at  the  shrines, 
sing  obscene  hymns,  and  generally  delight  the 
gods,  and  pander  to  the  lusts  or  avarice  of  the 
priests  of  the  temples.  They  are  a  recognised 
religious  institution. 

These  temple  girls  are  obtained  when  quite 
young  by  purchase  or  gift.  In  the  former  case, 
the  parents  sell  their  daughters  when  they  are 
children  ;  in  the  latter,  the  girl  is  a  thank-offering 
made  by  Hindus  of  certain  castes  for  recovery  from 
illness  or  relief  from  misfortune.  Occasionally 


ii6  Indian  Life 

a  man  presents  his  own  offspring,  but  if  he  is 
rich,  it  is  considered  more  respectable  to  buy  a 
poor  person's  daughter  and  present  her.  But  in 
neither  case  is  there  any  sense  of  shame  attached 
to  the  sacrifice,  and  in  the  contorted  morality  of 
the  Hindus,  the  profession  to  which  the  girl  is 
consigned  is  a  most  honourable  one,  and  carnal 
intercourse  with  the  temple  girls  ' '  an  act  of  faith 
and  worship,  and,  according  to  some  writers,  it 
effaces  all  sins  ' ' !  There  are  thousands  of  these 
poor  girl-slaves  in  the  temples  of  India,  who  are 
the  common  property  of  the  priests,  and  were 
consigned  to  their  infamous  lives  in  the  name  of 
religion  whilst  they  were  yet,  what  we  should 
call,  "in  the  nursery."  If  they  give  birth  to 
daughters,  the  latter  are  always  brought  up  in  the 
mother's  profession.  There  is  no  lack  of  recruits, 
who  are  accepted  from  all  castes.  Sometimes 
there  is  an  initiatory  ceremony,  when  the  girl  is 
formally  married  to  a  dagger,  the  wedding  being 
conducted  with  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance 
that  would  be  observed  in  her  marriage  to  a 
husband. 

The  tempk  gi:l  is  the  only  Hindu  woman  who 
has  any  place  or  share  in  the  rites  and  observances 
of  religion,  and  in  the  same  way  that  her  pro- 
fessional sister,  the  nautch-girl,  holds  a  most 
esteemed  place  in  Hindu  society,  so  the  Devidasi 
stands  next  in  importance  to  the  holy  priests  who 
sacrifice  at  the  shrine.  In  some  of  the  temples, 
the  religious  establishments  are  enormous,  as  for 


Woman's  Wrongs  117 

instance  at  that  of  Juggernauth  at  Puree,  where 
about  six  hundred  persons  are  employed.  The 
idol  is  treated  as  if  it  were  a  human  being;  there 
are  officiating  priests  to  perform  such  offices  for  it 
as  taking  it  to  bed,  awakening  it,  giving  it  water, 
washing  its  face,  offering  it  a  toothbrush,  count- 
ing its  robes,  feeding  it  with  rice,  carrying  its 
umbrella,  and  telling  it  the  time.  And  to  delight 
the  idol,  but  more  particularly  the  priests,  there 
are  a  hundred  and  twenty  temple  girls,  who  exer- 
cise a  religious  ministry,  and  are  termed  brides  of 
the  gods. 

Perhaps  the  most  inhuman  wrong  practised  on 
the  women  of  India  is  child-marriage.  As  I 
have  mentioned,  every  Hindu  girl  is  a  wife  or 
widow  at  fourteen,  and  in  many  parts  of  India 
much  younger.  Girls  have  actually  been  married 
before  they  were  a  year  old,  and  when  from  four 
to  six  years  of  age,  they  very  commonly  cease  to 
be  "single."  Eight  is  a  marriageable  age,  and 
twelve  is  the  maximum,  except  in  a  few  districts. 
Consummation  of  marriage  takes  place  at  the  ear- 
liest possible  date  nature  allows,  and  it  is  here 
that  revolting  abuse  has  long  established  itself. 

The  surrender  of  a  child-wife  to  her  husband 
at  a  totally  immature  age  has  been  the  custom  in 
India  for  all  ages.  It  is  one  of  those  iniquitous 
institutions  with  which  the  British  Government 
has  ever  been  chary  of  dealing,  for  it  stops  short 
of  actual  murder.  But  about  ten  years  ago,  the 
publication  of  the  terrible  and  tragic  details  in 


n8  Indian  Life 

connection  with  the  death  of  a  child-bride  raised 
such  a  storm  of  indignation  that  it  compelled 
legislation  in  the  name  of  civilisation,  ai:J  the 
' '  age  of  consent ' '  was  raised  to  twelve  years  by 
enactment.  Prior  to  this,  many  marriages  had 
been  consummated  at  ten.  But  to  legislate  and 
to  carry  legislation  into  effect  in  the  zenana  are 
two  very  different  things,  and  when  legislation 
goes  against  old-established  custom  and  religion, 
it  often  becomes  inoperative.  Nearly  fifty  years 
ago,  I/Drd  Canning  legalised  the  remarriage  of 
widows,  but  the  statistics  of  to-day  show  that  out 
of  approximately  twenty-three  millions  of  Hindu 
widows  only  about  twenty-five  are  remarried  an- 
nually! The  Hindu  considers  it  wrong  to  with- 
hold a  wife  from  her  husband  when  she  has 
reached  the  age  of  puberty,  and  no  legislation  can 
prevent  it  when  the  parents  of  the  bride  and  the 
husband's  household  are  in  agreement. 

Of  course,  the  physical  development  in  a  tropical 
country  explains  in  a  measure  what  would  be  im- 
possible in  our  own.  Instances  are  on  record  of 
Hindu  women  being  great-grandmothers  at  forty- 
eight,  each  generation  having  given  birth  to 
daughters  at  the  age  of  twelve.  Wives  have  been 
sent  to  their  husbands'  houses  at  the  age  of  eight. 
Nor  does  the  inhumanity  of  it  end  here,  for  al- 
though child-wives  are  more  frequently  married 
to  child-husbands,  there  are  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  cases  where  the  husband  is  a  man  of  forty, 
fifty,  or  even  sixty,  and  the  child-wife  may  be  his 


Woman's  Wrongs  119 

fourth  or  fifth.  The  State  of  Mysore,  which  in 
this  respect  is  considerably  in  advance  of  the  rest 
of  India,  passed  a  law  in  1894  prohibiting  the 
marriage  of  girls  under  eight  years  of  age,  and 
absolutely  forbidding  the  marriage  of  men  of 
fifty  and  upwards  with  girls  under  fourteen.  A 
similar  Marriage  Bill  introduced  into  the  Madras 
Legislative  Council  was  rejected,  and  the  British 
Government,  with  its  peculiar  sensitiveness  to  in- 
terfering with  the  social  customs  of  the  natives, 
has  done  nothing. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  evils 
of  child-marriage.  Physically,  it  leads  to  torture, 
deformity,  constitutional  ill-health,  and,  as  has 
been  indicated,  even  to  death  by  violence.  It 
produces  weak  and  sickly  offspring,  and  nips  the 
sentiment  of  maternal  love.  I  have  heard  of  a 
child-mother  who  was  accustomed  slyly  to  pinch 
her  infant  to  make  it  cry,  so  as  to  induce  her 
elders  to  take  it,  and  release  her  to  play.  Happy 
for  the  child- wife  if  she  has  the  spirit  to  play! 
When  she  goes  to  her  husband's  house,  it  is  to  an 
utterly  strange  place,  where,  under  the  patriarchal 
system  of  the  Hindus,  she  has  to  subordinate  her- 
self not  only  to  her  mother-in-law,  but  to  all  the 
elder  generation  of  women  in  the  house.  It  is 
pitiable  for  the  child- wife,  torn  from  a  home  that 
contained  all  she  knew  of  happiness,  to  be  obliged 
to  submit  herself  to  the  temper,  caprice,  and  often 
tyranny  of  her  husband,  but  when  to  this  is 
added  the  despotism  and  cruelty  of  several  elderly 


Indian  Life 


women,  who  often  avail  themselves  of  her  helpless- 
ness, and  if  she  fails  to  find  favour  in  her  husband's 
eyes,  almost  invariably  take  their  cue  of  unkind 
conduct  from  him,  her  lot  may  be  better  imagined 
than  described.  She  has  absolutely  no  place  to 
go  to  for  comfort  and  sympathy  if  it  is  not  to  be 
found  in  her  new  home.  There  is  no  escape, 
and  no  matter  what  her  sufferings,  her  parents' 
home  is  closed  to  her.  An  appeal  to  them  meets 
with  a  rigid  command  to  submit  herself  to  her 
husband. 

Mrs.  Fuller,  in  her  book  on  the  Wrongs  of  Indian 
Womanhood,  gives  a  very  pitiful  illustration  of  an 
unhappy  child-marriage,  which  may  be  taken  as 
typical  of  thousands  of  others.  A  young  Brahmin 
lad  of  sixteen  was  married  to  a  girl  of  nine,  who 
went  to  reside  with  him  a  year  later.  '  '  The  girl's 
appearance  did  not  suit  the  young  husband,  and 
if  she  went  near  him  to  serve  him  with  food,  he 
would  hit  her  on  the  crown  of  her  head  with  his 
knuckles.  Though  she  was  but  ten,  yet  they  ex- 
pected her  to  do  every  kind  of  work.  She  did  the 
household  work,  brought  water  for  all,  cleaned 
the  utensils  and  floor,  did  the  washing,  milked 
the  cow,  and  kept  its  stable  clean.  If  the  cow  did 
not  yield  the  proper  quantity  of  milk,  she  was 
punished.  .  .  .  Her  father-in-law  would  hang 
her  up  to  the  beam  of  the  roof  and  beat  her  piti- 
lessly. He  would  sometimes  suspend  her  to  the 
same  place  by  her  ankles,  and  under  her  head, 
thus  suspended,  place  a  vessel  with  red-hot  coals, 


Woman's  Wrongs  121 

on  which  he  sprinkled  red  pepper  to  almost  suffo- 
cate her.  Sometimes,  when  he  had  hung  her  to 
the  rope,  for  fear  she  should  be  tempted  to  break 
the  rope,  and  fall,  he  would  lay  branches  of  prickly 
pear  on  the  floor  beneath  her.  Once  or  twice,  this 
man  inflicted  on  her  punishments  which  decency 
forbids  us  to  relate.  .  .  .  When  her  father 
heard  of  all  this  cruelty,  he  exhorted  her  not  to 
run  away,  but  to  stay  and  die."  In  those  last 
three  words,  you  may  sum  up  the  life  sentence  that 
Hinduism  passes  on  the  Indian  wife.  The  father 
would  have  been  disgraced  had  his  daughter  left 
her  brutal  husband's  home,  and  the  woman's 
wrongs  did  not  count  in  the  balance  when  his 
own  interests  were  threatened. 

You  might  think  that  under  such  conditions 
widowhood  would  become  a  compensation,  instead 
of  which  it  is  the  crowning  curse  of  Indian  woman- 
hood. For  twenty  centuries,  the  custom  of  suttee 
or  the  self-immolation  of  widows,  existed  in  India, 
and  presents  the  best  commentary  on  the  state  of 
widowhood.  Even  within  the  last  twenty  years, 
cases  have  occurred  in  the  native  State  of  Nepaul. 
It  is  true  that  the  act  of  suttee  was  held  to  be 
most  meritorious,  and  supposed  to  secure  the 
widow  three  hundred  and  fifty  million  years  of 
connubial  felicity,  and  assure  salvation  to  her 
family  for  seven  generations;  but  such  visionary 
rewards  probably  had  less  influence  in  inducing 
widows  to  face  the  frightful  ordeal  than  the 
knowledge  of  what  their  future  lot  would  be. 


122  Indian  Life 

The  lot  of  the  Hindu  widow  has  not  changed,  and, 
in  the  words  of  one  of  the  social  reformers  of  the 
race,  it  is  described  as  "  Cold  Suttee." 

Briefly  speaking,  the  Hindu  widow  is  con- 
demned to  perpetual  mourning,  mortification,  and 
degradation.  Her  first  sacrifice  is  her  hair,  which 
is  shaved  off,  the  popular  belief  being  that  it  binds 
her  husband's  soul  in  hell  until  she  parts  with  it. 
In  which  connection,  I  may  mention  the  case  of 
an  old  man  and  his  wife  who  caught  the  plague; 
he  predeceased  her  by  four  hours,  and  yet,  in  the 
interim,  although  she  was  senseless  and  moribund, 
her  head  was  shaved.  To  return  to  the  widow's 
lot.  She  is  compelled  to  dress  in  the  commonest 
and  coarsest  garments,  to  relinquish  all  her  orna- 
ments and  jewels,  and  to  display  no  emblem  and 
enjoy  no  privilege  of  the  married  state.  She  may 
eat  only  one  meal  a  day  and  has  to  fast  twice  a 
month.  She  is  precluded  from  attending  any 
festivity,  must  never  presume  to  feast  or  try  to 
enjoy  herself,  and  be  careful  not  to  allow  her 
shadow  to  fall  on  food  or  water  that  is  about  to 
be  eaten  or  drunk.  She  is  regarded  as  carrying 
ill-luck  with  her  wherever  she  goes,  and  her  ap- 
pearance is  inauspicious.  A  man  starting  on  a 
journey  will  postpone  it  if  he  catches  sight  of  a 
widow  as  he  sets  out,  and  the  good  widow  will 
shrink  back  when  she  meets  or  crosses  a  man's 
path  for  fear  of  being  the  harbinger  of  evil  to  him. 
If  she  has  borne  no  children  to  her  husband,  she  is 
burned  without  the  rites  of  religion.  It  is,  per- 


Woman's  Wrongs  123 

haps,  necessary  to  explain  specifically  that  all 
these  things  tend  to  her  spiritual  exaltation. 

A  middle-aged  widow  who  has  borne  children 
can  manage  to  support  this  degraded  existence. 
If  she  is  the  mother  of  a  son,  a  sort  of  clemency  is 
extended  to  her,  for  she  has  performed  the  first, 
and  immeasurably  the  greatest,  duty  of  Indian 
womanhood.  Only  by  his  son,  begotten  in  law- 
ful wedlock,  performing  certain  exequial  rites  and 
ceremonies  can  a  father  be  delivered  from  one  of 
the  Hindu  hells;  failure  to  bear  a  sou  is  a  first 
cause  for  introducing  a  second  wife  into  the  hus- 
band's house.  A  widow  who  has  borne  only 
daughters  may  find  comfort  in  them.  But  the 
child-widow,  whose  husband  has  died  when  she 
was,  perhaps,  only  six  or  seven  years  old,  and  to 
whom  it  was  impossible  to  fulfil  the  prime  duty  of 
a  wife — for  her  is  reserved  the  crudest  and  most 
unjust  treatment  of  any.  She  is  peculiarly  repug- 
nant to  the  community,  one  to  whom  no  consid- 
eration or  pardon  can  be  extended,  but  only  the 
unreasonable  and  unremitting  hatred  and  abuse  of 
her  husband's  people.  For  widowhood  is  regarded 
as  a  punishment  for  the  sins  committed  by  the 
woman,  and  the  failure  to  bear  a  son  is  the  Sin 
Unpardonable. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  tragi- 
cal or  pathetic  than  the  unfolding  of  this  fate 
to  the  child-widow.  She  is  too  young  to  know 
what  has  happened,  or  only  comprehends  it 
very  vaguely.  She  continues  to  play  with  her 


124  Indian  Life 

companions,  for  she  is  not  called  upon  to  enter 
the  state  of  widowhood  until  she  reaches  the  age 
of  puberty.  As  a  child,  it  makes  little  differ- 
ence in  her  life,  saving  for  a  bitter  word  cast  at 
her  now  and  then,  the  reason  for  which  she 
does  not  understand,  or  her  hasty  ejectment  as  a 
bad  omen  what  time  she  may  have  unconsciously 
wandered  into  the  proximity  of  a  wedding-feast 
or  some  other  festivity.  But  at  length  there  comes 
a  day  when  womanhood  overtakes  her,  and  she 
who  never  committed  any  sin  has  to  suffer.  The 
barber  is  called  in,  and  her  hair  is  shaved  off;  her 
bright  clothes  are  taken  away  from  her,  and  she 
is  told  that  henceforth  she  must  wear  the  sackcloth 
of  mourning;  her  jewels,  if  she  has  any,  are  dis- 
tributed amongst  others;  and  she  enters  into  a  life 
of  social  ostracism.  For  what  reason  ?  For  being 
the  relict  of  a  husband  whose  face  she  saw  but  once. 
More  probably  than  not  of  a  child-husband,  and 
when  you  come  to  consider  the  statistics  of  mor- 
tality amongst  children,  you  may  gather  some 
idea  of  the  risk  encountered  by  the  Hindu  bride 
when  she  enters  into  the  state  of  matrimony! 

Such  a  system  and  such  treatment  naturally 
lead  to  terrible  results.  Life  becomes  hopeless 
and  intolerable,  and  frequently  ends  in  suicide  or 
enters  into  shame.  In  most  cases,  the  child- 
widow  has  become  the  slave  and  drudge  of  the 
household;  no  work  is  too  hard  to  impose  upon 
her,  and  she  is  a  stranger  to  any  kindness  or  con- 
sideration. Probably  she  has  a  little  more  free- 


Woman's  Wrongs  125 

dom  than  the  wife  is  allowed,  and  there  come  to 
her  temptations  which  may  not  be  resisted.  And 
if  she  succumbs  to  them,  who  can  blame  her  ? 

Very  frequently  she  falls  into  the  clutches  of  the 
Brahmins,  and  is  enjoined  to  make  a  pilgrimage 
to  one  of  the  holy  cities  to  pray  for  her  husband. 
The  men  of  the  temples  are  amorous,  and  the 
idols  do  not  disdain  young  and  pretty  widows. 
It  is  natural  for  Hindu  as  for  English  widows  to 
seek  the  solace  of  their  religion.  Bindraban  is 
one  of  the  holiest  places  of  pilgrimage;  there 
Krishna  is  worshipped,  and  to  his  shrine  flock 
countless  hosts  of  pilgrims,  amongst  them  a  vast 
number  of  widows.  Here  are  the  experiences  and 
observations  ot  one  which  have  been  recorded 
from  her  own  lips. 

"  When  we  arrived  at  Bindraban,  the  priests  of 
the  place  met  us  at  the  railway  station,  and  got 
us  a  house,  which  was  so  filthy  we  could  not  en- 
dure it.  We  sought  another,  and  found  a  good 
one  belonging  to  a  holy  man.  When  he  saw  us 
women,  he  was  very  anxious  for  us  to  stay,  but  we 
knew  what  it  meant,  and  left  immediately.  .  .  . 
The  Brahmins'  agents  tell  the  widows,  whom 
they  seek  in  the  villages  and  towns,  that  they  will 
go  to  heaven  if  they  proceed  to  these  sacred 
places,  and  live  there,  and  serve  the  priests,  and 
worship  the  god  Krishna.  The  poor  ignorant 
women  are  easily  persuaded  to  leave  their  homes, 
as  many  of  them  are  very  unhappy,  and  think  it 
is  far  better  to  go  and  live  and  die  in  sanctuary, 


i26  Indian  Life 

serving  Krishna.  Thus  thousands  of  widows, 
young  and  old,  go  to  Mathura  or  Bindraban, 
and  fall  into  the  snares  of  the  priests.  They  soon 
expend  the  little  they  have  in  giving  alms  and 
presents  to  priests,  and  when  all  is  spent,  cannot 
return  to  their  native  land.  Then,  if  they  are 
tolerably  young  and  good-looking,  the  holy  men, 
saints,  and  religious  mendicants  are  all  after  them, 
and  get  them  to  live  in  their  houses,  first  as  serv- 
ants, then  as  mistresses.  Or  they  hire  them  out 
to  other  men  in  the  towns  and  villages.  If  the 
women  are  unwilling  to  lead  immoral  lives,  they 
are  told  it  is  no  sin  to  live  thus  in  the  service  of 
Krishna.  When  they  get  old  and  displeasing  to 
the  men,  they  are  turned  out  to  shift  for  them- 
selves, ragged,  helpless,  seemingly  forsaken  by 
all,  and  left  to  die  like  dogs.  .  .  .  We  went 
round  the  town,  and  saw  the  condition  of  these 
women.  There  were  thousands  of  widows,  mostly 
from  Bengal,  and  the  heartless  cruelty  of  man  to 
woman,  which  we  saw  on  every  side,  is  almost 
beyond  description." 

Woman's  wrongs  are  everywhere  man's  rights 
in  India:  the  right  to  kill  in  infancy;  the  right  to 
ruin;  the  right  to  coerce;  the  right  to  ill-treat. 
England  has  emancipated  the  African  slave;  her 
laws  have  protected  the  brute  creation  from 
cruelty.  What  is  wanted  in  the  twentieth  century 
is  a  Wilberforce  to  rescue  Indian  womankind  from 
her  slavery,  and  a  legislation  to  teach  her  lord  and 
master  the  instincts  of  common  humanity. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  INDIAN  AT  HOME 

IT  would  require  a  thousand  interviewers  to  re- 
port on  ' '  The  Indian  at  Home ' '  in  all  his 
phases.  From  the  palace  of  the  rajah  to  the  hut 
of  the  ryot ;  from  the  furnished  mansions  of  the 
Europeanised  Parsees  to  the  cave  dwellings  of 
some  of  the  religious  devotees  ;  from  the  Swiss 
chalet-like  cottages  of  the  Himalayan  mountain- 
eers, perched  high  on  craig,  to  the  boats  on  the 
sea  and  river  that  give  residence  to  an  amphibious 
population  ;  from  the  tents  of  the  nomadic  tribes 
in  the  deserts  and  the  tree  that  shelters  some  of 
the  pastoral  races,  to  the  crowded  ant-nests  of 
humanity  in  some  of  the  city  caravanserais, — from 
all  these  specimens  of  town  and  country  life,  city 
and  jungle  life,  river  and  desert  life,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  make  a  typical  selection. 

"  There  is  safety  in  mediocrity,"  I  was  once  in- 
formed by  a  Bengali  baboo,  who  inclined  to  a 
middle  course.  And  perchance  a  middle-class 
Hindu's  house  in  Bengal  will  give  us  a  sufficiently 
good  idea  of  domestic  life.  I  am  beholden  for  my 
127 


128  Indian  Life 

details  to  two  or  three  Hindu  gentlemen  who 
have  written  on  the  subject. 

The  house  is  that  of  a  well-to-do  retired  trades- 
man, let  us  say,  who  can  afford  to  live  comfort- 
ably. He  is  an  elderly  man,  but  his  old  crone  of 
a  mother  is  still  alive,  his  four  sons  are  all  mar- 
ried, and  have  children,  whilst  two  of  his  brothers 
and  a  son,  deceased,  have  left  widows,  who,  under 
the  patriarchal  system,  all  dwell  under  the  same 
roof.  It  is  a  little  commune,  where  the  money 
earners  contribute  their  wages  to  a  common  purse, 
from  which  the  expenditure  is  apportioned  by  the 
head  of  the  house,  and  where  the  womenfolk  un- 
dertake all  the  domestic  duties,  with  considerably 
more  than  their  share  foisted  on  the  widows,  ex- 
cept the  old  grandmother  who  rules  in  the  zenana. 
Children  tumble  about  promiscuously,  and  there 
is  a  general  sensation  of  over- population  within  the 
walls.  Privacy  there  is  none,  saving  the  funda- 
mental privacy  which  partitions  off  the  women's 
from  the  men's  quarters. 

The  house  stands  in  a  garden,  well  cultivated, 
and  containing  a  well  or  tank,  and  several  shady 
trees.  It  is  double  storied,  and  the  upper  floor  is 
reached  by  a  cramped  corkscrew  staircase.  The 
ground  plan  forms  three  sides  of  a  square,  with  a 
courtyard  in  the  centre,  and  the  fourth  side  con- 
tains a  ddlldn,  or  open  reception-hall,  which  is  a 
sort  of  general  room,  drawing-room  (no  ladies  ad- 
mitted), clubroom,  schoolroom,  and  chapel.  The 
most  distinctive  feature  of  the  building  are  its 


The  Indian  at  Home         129 

verandahs.  The  interior  is  barn-like,  owing  to  the 
absence  of  all  furniture,  and  your  first  impression, 
as  a  European,  is  that  of  entering  a  disused  house. 
One  or  two  of  the  ground-floor  rooms  may  be 
paved,  but  those  upstairs  are  plastered  with  a 
coating  of  cow- dung  over  a  layer  of  earth,  as  wood 
is  not  considered  clean  enough  to  eat  off  of.  The 
walls  are  distempered,  such  a  thing  as  wall-paper 
being  unknown  in  India,  where  the  damp  of  the 
rainy  season  would  soon  peel  off  that  which  the 
white  ants  spared.  If  you  are  permitted  to  peep 
into  the  zenana,  in  the  absence  of  the  inmates, 
you  will  see  a  little  more  decoration  than  in  the 
men's  quarters;  but  even  here  the  most  noticeable 
article  is  a  commodious  bed,  and  a  few  rude  pic- 
tures painted  on  the  walls  are  the  only  relief  to 
the  general  suggestion  of  bareness.  In  lieu  of 
chairs,  there  are  small  rugs  or  mats  for  the  women 
to  sit  on,  and  the  narrow  windows  are  grated,  not 
glazed.  The  whole  interior  is  singularly  dark 
and  gloomy.  There  is  no  glass-  or  china-ware, 
brass  taking  their  place,  and  you  particularly  ob- 
serve the  brass  spittoons  placed  conspicuously 
about. 

The  karta,  or  head  of  the  family,  is  a  fat  and 
elderly  gentleman,  whose  costume  consists  of  a 
single  sheet  wrapped  round  his  waist,  much  as 
Englishmen  adjust  a  bathing- towel  on  issuing 
from  their  tubs.  We  should  call  him  a  scanda- 
lously indecent  old  fellow,  but  you  will  find  that 
all  the  men  in  the  house  adopt  this  principle  of 


130  Indian  Life 

semi-nudity  in  their  homes.  Here,  too,  the  tur- 
ban is  generally  laid  aside,  and,  needless  to  say, 
all  the  shoes  have  been  left  at  the  threshold,  just 
as  Europeans  leave  hats  on  a  hall-stand.  The 
kartd1  s  head  is  shaved,  except  for  a  tuft  on  the 
back  centre  of  the  poll;  he  wears  a  necklace  of 
beads  to  assist  him  in  his  prayers,  and  a  "  sacred 
thread  "  girdles  him  from  shoulder  to  waist,  which 
is  the  insignia  of  his  high  caste.  His  brown  naked 
skin  shines  from  its  polish  of  mustard  oil,  a  very 
favourite  application,  and  his  chief  employment  is 
squatting  on  his  hunkers  and  smoking  a  hookah. 
The  routine  of  household  life  is  singularly  simple. 
At  the  earliest  sign  of  dawn,  for  all  India  is  awake 
and  stirring  long  before  sunrise,  the  widows  of  the 
house  come  stealing  down  from  the  upper  rooms 
to  perform  their  ablutions,  which,  in  the  chilly 
morning  air  of  the  cold  weather,  consist  of  a  per- 
functory pouring  of  water  over  hands  and  face,  to 
be  followed  by  a  bath  later  in  the  day.  The 
sweeping  and  dusting  of  the  house  is  a  very  simple 
operation,  and  where  the  floor  is  the  common 
table,  it  is  necessarily  kept  scrupulously  clean. 
Then  follows  the  milking  of  the  cows  and  goats, 
for  every  one  who  can,  keeps  these  in  a  country 
where  milk  takes  the  place  of  tea,  coffee,  cocoa, 
ale,  wine,  and  spirits.  The  drawing  of  water  also 
is  no  slight  task  where  the  household  is  a  large 
one,  but  it  is  not  necessary  for  washing  pur- 
poses, as  everybody  goes  to  the  well  or  tank  for 
that  purpose,  and  even  the  women  bathe  in  the 


The  Indian  at  Home         131 

open,  changing  their  wet  garments  for  dry  ones 
with  such  quickness  and  dexterity  as  to  deceive 
the  eye  like  a  conjurer's  trick. 

By  this  time,  the  men  of  the  house  will  be  be- 
ginning to  stir,  and  custom  demands  that  the 
women  should  retire  to  their  own  part  of  the 
building.  Dressing  with  the  men  is  a  simple 
affair,  but  their  ablutions  take  a  long  time,  being 
accompanied  by  an  immense  amount  of  teeth- 
washing  and  expectoration.  Cleansed  and  puri- 
fied, the  worship  of  the  household  gods  next 
demands  attention.  These  are  rather  images 
than  idols.  In  a  niche  of  a  room,  squatting  upon 
its  own  little  altar,  is  the  representation  of  the 
deity  the  family  worship.  In  front  of  this,  puja 
has  to  be  made,  and  its  precincts  sprinkled  with 
rice  and  flowers.  There  is  more  punctuality  about 
family  prayers  in  Bengal  than  in  Britain,  only 
ladies  are  not  admitted.  After  this  observance, 
hookahs  are  lighted,  and  the  lords  and  masters 
while  away  the  time  until  the  womenfolk  serve 
the  morning  meal,  which  is  the  principal  one  of 
the  day. 

In  those  houses  where  the  expense  can  be  af- 
forded, a  Brahmin  is  kept  as  cook,  for  any  one  can 
eat  of  what  he  has  prepared,  whilst  if  the  women 
of  the  house  do  the  cooking,  only  those  of  the  same 
caste  can  be  entertained.  It  requires  no  small 
amount  of  skill  to  obtain  variety  and  tempt  the 
appetite  with  the  somewhat  limited  resources  of  a 
Hindu  larder.  You  may  enumerate  the  contents 


132  Indian  Life 

as  ghee  (rancid  butter),  oil,  spices,  vegetables, 
grain,  and  fish,  which  is  a  permissible  diet,  and 
almost  a  staple  where  a  river  or  the  sea  is  at  hand. 
Allowing  for  the  difference  of  taste,  Hindu  culin- 
ary science  leaves  crude  British  methods  far  be- 
hind. The  possibilities  of  rice  have  never  been 
suspected  in  England,  where  it  is  only  imported 
to  be  barbarously  treated,  whereas,  properly 
boiled,  spiced,  and  flavoured,  it  has  inherent 
capabilities  not  inferior  to  maccaroni.  Cooking  is 
a  universal  accomplishment  in  the  East;  amongst 
those  who  profess  the  art  are  chefs  whose  skill  is 
exquisite,  such  for  instance  as  the  Mugs  of  Chitta- 
gong;  but  apart  from  the  professional  cook,  "every 
schoolboy"  can  prepare  his  own  dinner,  and  when 
in  service  every  man  is  his  own  cook. 

The  Bengali's  menu  is  varied,  and  his  appetite 
enormous.  Measure  for  measure,  your  Indian  will 
far  outstrip  the  European  in  eating  capacity.  On 
the  floor,  four  or  five  large  dishes  and  as  many 
small  ones  figure,  consisting  of  soup,  fish,  currie, 
rice,  cakes,  puddings,  porridge,  pulse,  and  fruit, 
but  very  different  in  their  component  parts  from 
what  the  English  are  accustomed  to  under  the 
same  names,  and  in  their  order  of  serving. 

Every  one  eats  with  his  fingers.  The  women 
wait  upon  the  men;  withal  very  carefully,  for 
each  man  has  his  own  platter,  and  to  touch  it  or 
him,  even  though  it  is  his  wife  who  does  so,  con- 
taminates his  food  and  renders  it  uneatable.  An- 
other peculiarity  of  caste  is  that  no  individual 


The  Indian  at  Home         133 

may  leave  his  seat  until  all  his  fellows  have  fin- 
ished their  meal.  Any  food  remaining  uneaten 
has  to  be  thrown  away,  or  given  to  pariahs,  hu- 
man or  canine.  In  some  castes,  it  is  essential  for 
a  man  to  bathe  before  partaking  of  food,  and  the 
meal  is  often  required  to  be  eaten  in  nudity,  with 
merely  a  loin-cloth  worn. 

After  the  morning  meal  those  who  have  oc- 
cupation depart,  not  to  eat  again  till  nightfall, 
unless  it  be  a  few  sweetmeats  to  stay  the  pangs 
of  hunger.  The  master  of  the  family,  in  such  a 
household  as  I  am  describing,  who  has  grown-up 
sons  to  carry  on  his  business,  will  probably  leave 
it  to  them,  and  pass  his  time  till  the  heat  of  the 
day  in  smoking  and  chewing  pdn,  which  is  a  sort 
of  "  quid"  indulged  in  inordinately  by  both  men 
and  women.  It  is  composed  of  betel  nut,  spices, 
and  lime,  and  the  spittoons  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred are  a  very  necessary  adjunct  in  a  house. 
In  the  heat  of  the  day,  every  Indian  who  can 
manage  it  indulges  in  a  siesta.  With  the  decline 
of  the  sun  at  three  o'clock,  the  social  hours  begin, 
and  the  men  wander  forth  to  ' '  eat  the  air. ' '  Pas- 
times, in  the  English  sense  of  the  word,  the  Hindu 
has  few  or  none.  He  does  not  ride,  shoot,  or  sub- 
ject himself  to  any  physical  exertion;  indeed, 
such  is  held  to  be  derogatory.  Fishing  is  an 
exception,  and  he  is  remarkably  fond  of  the  pisca- 
torial art.  He  also  plays  cards  or  chess  occasion- 
ally. But  his  chief  pleasure  consists  in  chattering 
and  visiting,  disputing  and  arguing,  and  if  he  has 


134  Indian  Life 

the  chance  of  dissipation  it  is  freely  indulged  in. 
His  life  is  full  of  holidays,  which  have  to  be  re- 
spected on  religious  grounds,  and  afford  him 
much  scope  for  the  exercise  of  his  lazy  and  dilet- 
tante idiosyncrasies. 

Meanwhile,  the  women  remain  shut  up  in  the 
seclusion  of  the  domestic  part  of  the  house,  but 
far  from  idle.  The  superintendence  of  the  cook- 
ing is  in  itself  a  task  that  occupies  a  long  time, 
and  there  are  three  meals  to  be  served,  one  for  the 
men,  another  for  the  children,  and  a  third  for  the 
women  themselves.  They,  too,  must  have  their 
midday  nap,  and  bathing  and  devotions  cannot  be 
neglected.  Perhaps  in  the  afternoon  the  Hindu 
lady  finds  a  little  spare  time  for  visiting  or  receiv- 
ing a  visit  from  her  women  friends,  and  even 
playing  a  game  of  cards.  L,ater  on,  she  makes 
her  toilette,  and  although  compliments  or  ad- 
mirers can  never  come  her  way,  she  bestows  great 
attention  upon  her  dress  and  ornaments,  and  daily 
smears  her  forehead  with  the  patch  of  vermilion 
that  denotes  her  married  state.  In  the  evening, 
there  may  be  a  story-teller,  an  old  woman  elo- 
quent with  ancient  legend,  called  in  to  make  an 
hour  pass,  but  you  will  find  no  such  things  as 
books,  musical  instruments,  sketching  materials, 
or  the  ordinary  diversions  and  distractions  one  is 
accustomed  to  associate  with  womankind  in  her 
boudoir.  The  Bengali  lady's  costume,  it  may  be 
noted,  consists  of  one  piece  of  cloth  wound  round 
her  body  in  a  way  to  cover  it,  but  it  hardly  serves 


The  Indian  at  Home         135 

to  conceal  the  symmetry,  and  the  thin  muslins  in 
fashion  often  render  it  indecorous.  In  those  parts 
of  India  where  the  Mahomedan  influence  has 
made  itself  most  felt,  the  women  wear  trousers, 
which  are  always  fashioned  of  coloured  cloth  in 
contradistinction  to  the  men's,  which  are  seldom 
anything  but  white.  A  more  hideous  garment 
than  the  woman' s  pyjama  probably  does  not  exist. 
But  the  Bengali  lady  is  very  classically  draped, 
and  sometimes  presents  a  most  voluptuous  sight. 

The  evening  brings  supper  and  tr'.e  preparations 
for  it,  and  this  is  the  concluding  function  of  the 
day.  There  is  no  recreation  afterwards,  for  as 
it  is  early  to  rise,  so  it  is  early  to  bed.  Indeed, 
in  the  ill-lighted  Hindu  house,  any  recreation, 
except  conversation,  after  dark  is  practically 
impossible. 

The  home-life  of  the  peasant  presents  a  more 
primitive  picture.  The  distinction  of  a  zenana  is 
beyond  his  means,  or,  more  probably,  not  neces- 
sary in  his  caste.  His  home  is  a  hut,  containing  a 
single  room,  the  walls  of  mud,  the  roof  thatched, 
and  the  interior  as  bare  as  a  barn.  In  the 
plains  country,  he  lives  in  a  village  in  which  the 
houses  cluster  together,  a  survival  of  the  old 
predatory  days  of  rapine  and  foray,  when  men 
had  to  gather  in  communities  in  order  to  protect 
themselves,  and  many  a  field  was  ploughed  and 
many  a  harvest  gathered  under  an  armed  guard. 
Even  now  the  custom  has  survived  of  enclosing 
villages  within  a  wall,  making  each  a  miniature 


Indian  Life 


stronghold.  Around  them  stretch  the  cultivated 
lands  and  fields,  not  divided  by  hedges  and 
ditches,  but  apportioned  off  in  tiny  plots,  inter- 
mingling with  one  another,  their  boundaries  de- 
fined by  low  earth  banks.  A  man  may  possess 
half  an  acre  cut  up  into  half  a  dozen  such  plots, 
and  interspersed  with  the  holdings  of  others,  like 
the  black  and  white  squares  on  a  chess-board. 

The  peasant  rises  early  and  performs  his  ablu- 
tions, and  in  this  respect  the  native  of  India  might 
set  an  example  to  his  agricultural  brother  in  more 
civilised  lands,  for  he  laves  himself  with  water 
very  frequently.  He  is  off  early  to  the  fields,  tak- 
ing some  cold  food  with  him  to  break  his  fast. 
At  noon,  his  wife  brings  him  his  dinner,  which  is 
generally  followed  by  a  sleep.  From  three  till 
sunset,  he  is  again  at  the  plough  or  whatever  work 
is  in  progress.  Ploughing  is  the  only  operation 
not  shared  in  by  the  women,  who,  in  addition  to 
helping  their  husbands  in  the  fields,  perform  all 
the  household  work.  If  the  fine  zenana  lady  has 
cause  to  complain  of  time  hanging  heavily  on  her 
hands,  her  humbler  sister  cannot.  Apart  from 
her  domestic  duties,  there  is  water  to  be  brought 
in,  often  entailing  a  long  journey,  and  fuel  to  be 
provided.  The  working  up  of  cow-dung  into 
what  are  familiarly  known  as  '  'cakes'  '  for  fuel,  and 
plastering  them  on  the  side  of  the  hut  to  dry  in 
the  sun,  absorb  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  her 
time;  or,  maybe,  wood  has  to  be  cut  and  carried 
from  the  distant  jungle  if  the  house  is  in  a  tim- 


The  Indian  at  Home         137 

bered  district.  At  the  busy  seasons,  you  may  see 
the  woman  working  whilst  her  husband  is  enjoy- 
ing his  siesta,  and  it  is  rarely  that  any  time  is 
restful  for  her.  She  knows,  too,  what  it  is  to  be 
hungry  whilst  her  husband  is  satisfied,  and  the 
pride  and  satisfaction  of  "  dressing  the  baby  "  can 
never  be  hers,  whose  children  are  habitually 
naked. 

The  thrif  tiness  of  the  peasant  is  marvellous.  I 
have  often  seen  the  women  sweeping  the  little 
khSts,  or  fields  of  rice,  with  a  hand-broom  after 
harvest  to  collect  the  fallen  grain,  and  gathering 
singly  those  ears  that  happen  to  have  ripened  be- 
fore the  bulk  of  the  crop.  In  the  mango  season, 
it  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  to  suspend  one  meal 
because  sustenance  can  be  derived  from  the  wild 
fruit.  And,  for  waste,  the  care  with  which  grain 
just  sufficient  for  a  meal,  no  more  and  no  less,  is 
estimated,  indicates  a  mind  as  calculating  as  it  is 
frugal.  And  this  grain,  be  it  noted,  except  in 
Bengal  and  other  favoured  rice-growing  districts, 
is  rarely  rice,  which  is  far  too  much  of  a  luxury 
for  the  peasant's  fare.  His  ordinary  food  consists 
of  millet,  pulse,  and  other  coarse  grain,  with  salt 
and  chillies  for  a  condiment. 

Cattle  have  been  called  the  peasant's  children, 
and  next  only  to  himself  is  his  heed  for  them. 
If  you  wanted  to  express  the  ryot's  idea  of  perfect 
prosperity,  you  have  only  to  add  a  yoke  of  oxen  to 
the  three  acres  and  a  cow  which  were  once  held 
out  as  a  lure  to  the  English  agricultural  voter. 


138  Indian  Life 

There  are  millions  of  peasants  in  India  who  exist 
on  half  an  acre,  and  whose  cattle  for  eight  months 
in  the  year  are  little  removed  from  walking  skele- 
tons. In  Australia,  they  allow  an  acre  for  each 
sheep;  were  it  possible  to  allow  the  same  in  India 
for  the  human  being,  the  standard  of  comfort 
would  be  considerably  increased. 

The  native  of  India  has  one  capacity  which 
more  civilised  people  do  not  possess.  He  can 
make  himself  at  home  anywhere,  and  adapt  him- 
self to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  places.  Away 
from  his  own  home,  he  experiences  no  trouble 
about  lodging.  He  will  "  fix  up  "  anyhow.  His 
bed  is  a  blanket,  which  he  invariably  carries  with 
him;  his  impedimenta  a  water- vessel  and  a  pan  to 
cook  his  food  in.  His  apartment  is  a  circle  swept 
clear  and  clean  on  the  bare  earth,  under  a  tree 
for  choice.  Except  in  the  colder  latitudes,  where 
a  tent  is  necessary,  there  is  no  need  to  make  any 
arrangements  for  servants  when  travelling  or 
camping  out.  They  turn  in  like  dogs;  on  the 
floor  of  a  verandah,  at  the  door  of  your  tent,  in  the 
stable,  under  a  tree,  or  sheltered  by  the  bullock 
cart  that  is  carrying  your  equipage.  On  the  high- 
ways of  India,  you  will  see  under  almost  every 
shady  tree  the  ashes  of  burnt-out  fires,  which 
represent  the  camping-grounds  of  wayfarers.  In 
towns  and  cities,  there  are  places  called  "  serais," 
where  the  charge  for  accommodation  varies  from 
a  halfpenny  to  fourpence  a  night,  but  they  are 
merely  open  sheds,  and  many  a  native  prefers  to 


The  Indian  at  Home         139 

save  his  halfpenny  and  camp  under  the  walls  out- 
side. When  the  crops  are  ripening,  the  peasant 
erects  a  mackdn,  or  elevated  squatting  place,  in 
the  middle  of  his  fields,  and  remains  on  the  watch 
all  night  to  scare  away  the  deer,  jackals,  wild  pig, 
and  other  predatory  animals  that  loot  his  crops. 
A  man  will  make  a  pilgrimage  that  takes  him 
many  weeks,  and  never  pay  a  farthing  for  lodging 
all  the  time.  Many  of  the  pastoral  tribes  have  no 
roof,  except  the  vault  of  heaven. 

In  city  life,  the  case  is  very  different,  and  the 
many-storied  human  warrens  of  such  places  as 
Calcutta  and  Bombay  can  only  be  likened  to  ants' 
nests.  In  a  native  city  like  L,ucknow  or  Hydera- 
bad, where  the  Mahomedan  element  predominates, 
and  the  seclusion  of  all  the  women  is  necessary, 
the  overcrowding  transcends  the  Jews'  quarters  in 
Whitechapel.  Under  such  conditions,  caste,  and 
even  custom,  have  to  give  way  to  convenience,  or, 
at  least,  what  is  practicable,  and  domestic  privacy 
in  its  rural  state  becomes  impossible  except  for  the 
wealthy.  For  rents  have  to  be  paid,  and  that  is 
a  very  disagreeable  form  of  expenditure  in  a  land 
where,  although  the  population  is  as  poor  as  the 
proverbial  church  mouse,  yet  it  is  a  fact  that  more 
than  four  fifths  of  the  people  pay  no  rent,  but  live 
in  their  own  houses! 

To  summarise  the  Indian  home,  you  may  say 
that  it  affords  shelter  from  the  sun  and  rain,  and 
supplies  that  amount  of  privacy  which  walls  can 
afford.  But  when  you  seek  for  comfort,  taste, 


140 


Indian  Life 


and  decoration,  you  seek  in  vain.  In  its  social 
aspect,  it  is  entirely  wanting  in  that  spirit  which 
lends  enchantment  to  our  own  idea  of  home  life, 
and  leaves  us  little  cause  to  regret  that  in  his  self- 
ishness and  suspicion  the  native  of  India  is  prac- 
tically always  ' '  not  at  home ' '  to  callers. 


CHAPTER  X 

IN  THE  SUNSHINE 

ARK  you  happy?" 
"  I  am  happy." 

That  is  one  of  the  commonest  forms  of  saluta- 
tion in  the  East,  corresponding  to  our  "  How  d' 
you  do?"—"  Quite  well,  thank  you."  But  the 
conventional  inquiry  and  stereotyped  reply  mean 
little.  "  I  am  happy,"  a  man  answered  me  once, 
with  a  very  lugubrious  face,  who,  I  learned  on 
further  questioning,  had  lost  nine  of  his  nearest 
and  dearest  relations  from  cholera  during  the 
three  preceding  days. 

I  am  conscious  that  so  far  in  this  attempt  to  de- 
pict daily  life  in  India  the  colours  used  have  been 
sombre.  It  has  been  unavoidable,  for  India  is  a 
land  of  penury  and  privation,  struggle  and  star- 
vation, woe  and  want,  for  the  vast  majority. 
England  is  not  "  merrie"  when  times  are  hard; 
in  India,  the  times  are  always  more  or  less  hard. 
A  popular  handbook  tells  us  that  the  Indian  peas- 
ant is  at  the  best  of  times  not  far  from  the  verge  of 
starvation,  and  the  statement  is  not  exaggerated. 
141 


Indian  Life 


I  harp  on  the  peasant,  but,  after  all,  he  is  nine 
tenths  of  the  country. 

I/et  us  see  what  sunshine  there  is  in  the  lives  of 
the  native  Indians  over  and  above  that  superabun- 
dance poured  upon  the  land,  what  are  their  theo- 
ries of  enjoying  themselves,  their  amusements, 
their  diversions,  and  recreations.  Prosperity  and 
happiness  are  often  synonymous  terms,  and  I 
think  material  prosperity  yields  more  unalloyed 
delight  in  the  East  than  in  the  West.  There  is 
much  of  the  miser  in  the  native  of  India,  and  the 
accumulation  of  money,  or  its  equivalent,  brings 
rapture  to  the  brown  soul.  The  money-lender's 
ledger  is  a  book  whose  perusal  brings  him  more 
pleasure  than  all  the  other  literature  of  the  East. 
I  have  seen  a  spiritual  gleam  of  happiness  on  the 
face  of  a  shepherd,  whose  features  were  ordinarily 
as  witless  as  those  of  his  own  sheep  and  goats, 
what  time  the  lambing  season  came  round,  and 
things  were  going  well.  And  I  have  often  ob- 
served a  peasant  squatting  on  one  of  the  banks 
that  divided  his  fields,  contemplating  his  ripening 
crops  with  a  smile  that  intimated  sunshine  in  his 
soul.  The  happiest  ryot  I  ever  knew  was  a  land- 
less labourer,  who,  after  twenty  years  of  frugality 
and  self-denial,  saved  sufficient  to  buy  himself  an 
acre  of  land.  I  vow  that  man  was  a  monument 
of  merriness;  his  face  always  engendered  a  sym- 
pathetic grin  in  mine;  it  made  one  happy  by  infec- 
tion to  look  at  him.  "  Happy  !  Bigly  happy  !  '  '  was 
his  spontaneous  ejaculation  every  time  I  met  him. 


In  the  Sunshine  H3 

But  this,  after  all,  does  not  describe  the  sort 
of  sunshine  the  chapter-heading  aims  at,  which 
rather  refers  to  moral  than  material  cheerfulness. 
The  basis  of  happiness  in  England  is  home  life; 
if  a  man  is  happy  at  home,  it  makes  up  for  all  the 
kicks  he  gets  abroad.  How  about  the  home  life 
of  the  native  of  India  ? 

His  ideas  of  domesticity  are  very  foreign  to 
ours,  and  it  is  difficult  to  enter  into  his  feel- 
ings. Where  he  has  sons  I  think  probably  you 
can  account  him  content.  A  son  is  something 
more  to  him  than  one  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria 
or  the  Tzar  of  Russia,  for  a  male  child  is  neces- 
sary to  his  salvation  in  a  future  state.  A  great 
light  beams  on  his  house  when  a  son  is  born.  As 
for  his  wife,  she  is  quite  a  secondary  consideration; 
she  can  be  replaced,  but  a  son  cannot  be  assured. 
I  remember  sympathising  with  a  native  friend, 
quite  a  superior  man,  whose  wife  and  son  were 
both  dangerously  ill.  He  was  filled  with  anguish 
for  the  latter,  but  when  I  ventured  a  guarded  in- 
quiry (  as  etiquette  demanded)  about  the  former, 
"K&ch  perwdni!"  was  the  reply — "No  matter 
about  her." 

The  native  is  a  fond  parent,  often  a  doting  one. 
He  systematically  spoils  his  children.  Even  a 
daughter,  whose  advent  is  dreaded,  will  worm  her 
way  into  her  father's  heart.  There  was  another 
native  friend  of  mine  I  used  to  visit  periodically 
who  always  had  a  bed  brought  out  for  me  to  sit 
on,  and  placed  in  the  shade  of  a  tree  in  front  of 


144  Indian  Life 

his  house.  By-and-by,  as  I  became  a  familiar 
figure,  his  little  daughter  would  shyly  steal  out 
to  reconnoitre  the  sahib,  and,  growing  bolder, 
nestle  in  her  father's  lap,  and  proceed  to  tease  him. 
The  thing  told  its  own  tale,  and  I  cannot  conceive 
that  man  was  anything  but  happy  in  his  domestic 
relation  with  that  daughter.  And  when  she  mar- 
ried at  the  age  of  twelve,  and  left  his  home  for 
good,  I  often  used  to  think  he  missed  the  childish 
caresses,  which  he  accepted  before  me  with  such 
an  air  of  apologetic  shamefacedness,  from  a  loving 
little  girl  who  would  not  be  denied  her  demon- 
stration of  affection.  And  I  should  certainly  say 
that  the  girl-child,  so  unwelcome  at  her  birth,  had 
come  to  be  a  ray  of  sunshine — whilst  it  lasted — in 
her  father's  life. 

The  inaccessibility  of  an  Indian  home  makes  it 
impossible  for  the  European  to  form  any  trust- 
worthy opinion  of  its  constitutional  happiness  or 
otherwise.  Hindu  writers  insist  on  its  joys,  and, 
while  admitting  the  harsh  conditions  under  which 
they  live,  declare  the  womenfolk  are  contented 
and  happy.  This  may  be  true,  but  it  is  seldom, 
if  ever,  indicated  in  the  external  behaviour  or  the 
appearance  of  the  females,  which  rather  create  the 
idea  of  a  subdued  melancholy.  But  for  the  men, 
I  readily  admit  that  affection  for  "  home  "  in  the 
abstract  is  a  feature  in  their  characters;  but  I 
should  hesitate  before  I  committed  myself  as  to 
whether  it  is  for  the  place  or  the  people  in  it.  It 
is  a  difficult  topic  to  touch  on  in  conversation 


In  the  Sunshine  145 

with  a  native,  who  never  ' '  lets  himself  out ' '  on 
this  aspect  of  his  life. 

Coming  to  the  amusements  of  the  people,  you 
find  them  singularly  crude.  There  are  no  na- 
tional games,  save  those  the  English  have  intro- 
duced through  the  medium  of  schools.  Cricket 
and  football  amongst  the  schoolboys  of  the  modern 
rising  generation  are  now  common  enough,  but 
they  are  only  played  by  the  educated  youth,  and 
that  in  India  is  the  equivalent  of  what  the  con- 
ditions in  England  would  be  if  the  great  public 
schools  monopolised  those  sports.  All  the  world 
over,  children  will  play,  but  they  have  fewer  toys 
to  play  with  in  India  than  in  any  land  I  know  of, 
and  leave  off  playing  sooner  in  life  than  elsewhere, 
and,  as  they  marry  early,  grow  staid  early.  I  re- 
member talking  to  a  Mahomedan  youth  twelve 
years  of  age,  the  son  of  a  Nawab,  who  was  going 
to  England  to  be  educated  at  Harrow.  He  was 
married  earlier  than  usual  in  life  for  a  Mahome- 
dan, because  he  would  be  absent  when  the  proper 
time  arrived,  and  his  father  wanted  the  match 
secured.  He  was  the  most  precocious  boy  I  ever 
conversed  with,  entered  into  a  description  of  his 
home  life,  told  me  his  step-mother  was  very  jeal- 
ous of  him  and  he  always  went  in  fear  that  she 
would  poison  him,  described  his  bride  and  criti- 
cised her  want  of  accomplishments,  and  protested 
that  he  spent  his  leisure  in  reading  Sadi  and  the 
Koran.  An  Englishman  of  double  his  age  would 
not  have  talked  more  seriously  and  soberly,  and 


146  Indian  Life 

for  his  deportment,  it  was  that  of  a  grown-up  per- 
son. In  my  plantation  I  employed  a  great  num- 
ber of  boys  from  ten  or  eleven  to  fifteen  or  sixteen 
years  of  age,  and  I  can  never  call  to  mind  seeing 
them  playing  out  of  work-hours. 

The  Indian  Tamdsha,  or  entertainment  and 
amusement  combined,  is  one  where  a  few  perform 
and  the  many  look  on.  Festivals  are  far  more 
numerous  than  in  England,  but  (except  in  the 
case  of  fairs,  with  which  I  shall  deal  presently) 
frolic  enters  only  into  one.  The  annual  DSzvali 
festival  is  a  saturnalia  of  horse-play  and  inde- 
cency, during  which  the  mild  and  staid  Hindu 
seems  to  lose  his  head  utterly.  He  expends  his 
energies  in  sousing  everybody  he  meets  with  red 
water  and  yellow  powder  to  a  chorus  of  ' '  Holi, 
holt,  holi"  and  a  commentary  of  obscene  jests 
and  jokes.  At  certain  other  festivals,  he  goes  in 
for  gambling.  But  his  general  idea  of  a  Bank 
Holiday  has  physical  laziness  at  the  back  of  it, 
and  a  good  long  sleep  or  bask  in  the  sun,  smoking 
his  hookah,  affords  him  all  the  relaxation  and 
enjoyment  he  seeks. 

Horse-racing  is  unknown  to  him;  cricket  and 
football  he  does  not  understand;  rowing  is  the 
privilege  of  a  caste,  being  a  calling;  theatres  he 
has  none;  the  pleasures  of  a  walk  for  walking's 
sake  are  outside  his  comprehension;  "  courting  " 
is  against  his  custom;  reading  is  beyond  his 
powers.  If  I  were  asked  to  summarise  his  idea 
of  thoroughly  amusing  himself,  I  should  say 


In  the  Sunshine  H7 

sight-seeing.  He  wants  something  tr>  look  at,  not 
something  to  do.  He  dislikes  manly  sports  and 
hobbies  he  has  none.  The  idea  of  a  native  train- 
ing for  physical  proficiency,  or  bicycling  for 
pleasure,  or  pigsticking,  or  taking  up  photo- 
graphy, or  going  in  for  botan} ,  or  collecting  any- 
thing for  art's  sake,  is  too  remote  to  be  considered. 
What  are  the  sports  of  the  great  and  the  rich  ? 
Nautch-girls  and  music,  cock-fighting  and  pitting 
wild  animals  one  against  the  other,  hunting  with 
a  cheetah,  or  falconry.  A  few  shoot,  but  from  the 
ease  of  an  elephant's  howdah,  or  for  the  "  pot." 
Ask  them  to  walk  up  a  marsh  for  snipe  and  they 
will  think  you  mad.  To  aim  at  a  flying  bird  is 
accounted  folly  by  the  native  shikari. 

Nor  is  the  native  capable  of  deriving  any  pleas- 
ure from  the  beauties  of  nature.  A  pretty  scene, 
a  lovely  sunset,  an  artistic  blend  of  colours  lack 
the  power  of  appealing  to  him.  His  nosegays  are 
red  and  yellow;  his  finest  artists  have  not  the  re- 
motest idea  of  depicting  a  landscape;  he  will  look 
at  an  English  picture  upside  down.  Music  he  en- 
joys, but  it  is  the  sort  of  music  that  sends  a  Euro- 
pean distracted.  He  is  not  ordinarily  tickled  by 
a  joke,  and  he  laughs  little,  and  never  loudly. 
There  is  a  certain  sour  dignity  in  his  code  of 
etiquette  which  debars  him  from  romping  with 
children,  or  indulging  in  any  physical  pastime, 
and  this  repression  is  extended  to  those  feelings 
the  exhibition  of  which  indicates  pleasure  with 
Europeans. 


148  Indian  Life 

Women  are  naturally  more  restricted  than  men 
in  their  pleasures  and  amusements.  Bven  in  the 
zenanas  of  the  rich,  books  merely  mention  their 
love  of  dress  and  jewellery,  as  constituting  their 
chief  pleasure,  and  story-telling  and  a  game  of 
cards  are  their  principal  amusements.  The  re- 
creations of  the  lower  orders  are  even  fewer,  and 
perhaps  their  most  enjoyable  hour  is  that  when 
the  gathering  round  the  well  to  draw  water  per- 
mits the  luxury  of  a  gossip,  which  they  thoroughly 
appreciate. 

Without  doubt,  feasting  affords  the  greatest 
general  gratification.  It  is  the  leading  form  of 
entertainment.  To  feast  the  Brahmins  is  particu- 
larly enjoined  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  Hindus, 
and  no  ceremony  or  festival  is  complete  without 
a  banquet.  Beggars  congregate  on  such  occasions 
with  the  knowledge  they  will  not  go  away  empty. 
In  nine  cases  out  often,  when  your  native  asks  you 
for  leave  of  absence,  it  is  to  attend  some  burra 
khdna,  or  big  dinner.  Backslidings  from  caste  in- 
variably require  the  giving  of  a  feast  to  secure  for- 
giveness and  purification .  In  a  land  where  hunger 
is  chronic,  and  death  from  starvation  periodical, 
it  is  easy  to  understand  that  a  full  stomach  may 
mean  the  acme  of  joy.  No  native  feeds  oftener 
than  twice  a  day,  and  in  some  cases  only  once. 
They  have  prodigious  powers  of  eating,  and  I 
have  known  men  lament  their  Gargantuan  appe- 
tite as  a  handicap  on  their  livelihood,  and  put  it 
forward  as  a  plea  for  extra  pay.  On  the  other 


In  the  Sunshine  149 

hand,  there  is  a  species  of  rice  which  is  very  ex- 
pensive, and  only  purchased  by  the  wealthy,  be- 
cause (as  was  explained  to  nie)  it  is  easily  digested, 
and  you  get  hungry  again  within  two  hours. 
The  term  ' '  prosper  and  wax  fat ' '  has  its  many 
illustrations  in  India,  where  a  man's  worldly  cir- 
cumstances may  be  correctly  gauged  by  his  cir- 
cumference. Fatness  is  a  charm  in  women,  and 
a  cause  for  envy  in  men;  khub  moti  (beautifully 
fat)  is  a  common  phrase  of  compliment.  Eastern 
life  is  sensual,  and  the  appetite  of  the  stomach  not 
the  least  source  of  pleasure.  What  drinking  is  in 
the  West,  that  is  eating  in  the  East;  the  medium 
of  self-indulgence  and  conviviality. 

I  should  also  feel  inclined  to  rank  idleness  as  one 
of  the  chief  delights  of  the  Indian.  "The  apathetic 
attitude  of  contemplative  Asia"  has  been  made 
familiar  to  us  in  books  of  travel,  but  I  do  not  think 
we  quite  realise  what  pure  enjoyment  there  is  in 
some  of  that  apathy.  The  native  is  an  adept  in 
the  art  of  doing  nothing;  it  never  bores  him  to  be 
idle;  on  the  contrary,  he  seems  to  take  a  positive 
pleasure  in  prolonging  his  inaction,  and  will  squat 
on  his  hams  by  the  hour,  like  a  crow  on  a  wall, 
and  enjoy  it  as  much  as  Western  people  do  read- 
ing a  novel  in  an  easy  armchair,  or  listening  to  a 
concert.  I  would  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  of  the 
average  native  that  he  is  seldom  so  happy  as  when 
he  is  idle;  and  outside  the  islands  of  the  Pacific  I 
doubt  if  you  will  find  a  more  devoted  disciple  of 
the  dolcefar  niente.  The  educated  mind  and  the 


i5°  Indian  Life 

active  body  of  the  mentally  and  physically  ener- 
getic Briton  may  make  him  scout  such  a  conten- 
tion, but  feed  the  Anglo-Saxon  on  vegetable  diet 
for  three  generations,  plant  him  in  a  tropical 
climate,  eliminate  from  his  resources  the  ability  to 
read,  and  reduce  his  surroundings  to  those  which 
are  within  reach  of  the  native,  and  I  fancy  he 
vrould  begin  to  discover  unsuspected  possibilities 
of  enjoying  himself  in  the  passive. 

There  is  one  species  of  amusement  which  stands 
out  in  the  economy  of  Indian  life  as  universal  and 
supreme,  and  that  is  the  m£la,  or  fair.  It  may  be 
a  religious  festival  in  honour  of  some  shrine,  or  a 
great  annual  gathering  like  that  of  Hurdwar,  or 
a  purely  commercial  business  like  the  cattle-fairs 
held  in  various  parts  of  India,  but  it  represents 
the  native's  most  extended  idea  of  dissipation. 
For  weeks  before,  it  is  the  one  subject  of  his  an- 
ticipation; for  weeks  after,  the  one  topic  of  his 
conversation.  It  is  the  single  species  of  festiv- 
ity in  which  the  women  have  almost  as  great  a 
part  as  the  men;  not,  of  course,  the  poor  zenana 
captives,  who  are  never  let  out  of  their  prisons, 
but  the  ordinary  native  woman  who  leaves  her 
home  for  a  holiday  as  seldom  as  the  omnibus- 
driver  does  his  box.  To  them,  the  fair  is  what  the 
Christmas  pantomime  is  to  children  who  are  taken 
to  the  theatre  once  a  year;  their  glee  is  childish, 
and  to  be  forbidden  the  treat  would  certainly 
reduce  them  to  tears. 

An  Indian  fair  is  a  far  more  picturesque  scene 


In  the  Sunshine  151 

than  an  English  one,  and  none  held  in  England 
can  compete  with  even  a  moderate  gathering  out 
in  the  East.  As  the  population  of  India  is  num- 
bered in  hundreds  of  millions  and  that  of  Great 
Britain  in  tens  of  millions,  so  it  is  with  the  vast 
and  overwhelming  multitudes  that  attend  these 
fairs.  They  gather  together  such  crowds  as  no- 
thing short  of  a  Coronation  or  Jubilee  can  col- 
lect in  England.  To  English  eyes,  the  most 
extraordinary  part  of  the  spectacle  is  the  sud- 
den apparition  of  more  women  than  you  ever 
suspected  were  in  the  land;  one  wonders  where 
they  all  spring  from,  and  marvels  that  so  much 
comeliness  should  remain  hidden,  if  it  is  lawful 
to  be  seen.  But  there  is  a  sort  of  license  allowed 
to  women  in  attending  a  fair,  and  for  once  in  a 
way,  all  their  faces  are  smiling  instead  of  decorous. 
You  may  live  many  years  in  India  and  form  the 
opinion  that  the  women  are — I  will  not  say  ugly, 
but  decidedly  unattractive.  Go  to  a  fair,  and  the 
revelation  bursts  on  you  that  they  can  hold  their 
own  in  looks  with  any  country  in  the  world.  Per- 
haps it  is  the  unaccustomed  smile  that  lights  up 
their  features — usually  prudish  and  stand-offish  in 
the  ordinary  episodes  of  life.  And  yet,  no;  I  can 
call  to  mind  mtlas  in  the  hill-country,  where  the 
lighter  complexioned  races  live,  which  left  me 
with  a  suspicion  that,  after  all,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
woman  might  not  be  so  beautiful  as  the  Aryan. 
And  one  thing  is  certain  about  these  fairs:  they 
serve  to  bring  out  the  fair.  I  do  not  mean  an 


152  Indian  Life 

abominable  pun  by  that,  but  the  simple  statement 
of  fact  that  you  see  at  them  a  vast  number  of  wo- 
men who  are  not  daily  exposed  to  the  sun,  and 
realise  that  the  women  of  India  are  far  lighter 
complexioned  than  the  men. 

And  then  their  dresses!  The  fashion  may  be 
two  thousand  years  old,  but  the  wealth  of  colour, 
the  tinsel,  the  prodigality  of  silver  jewellery  taken 
in  the  mass  present  such  a  coup  d'ceil  as  would 
make  Ascot  or  Goodwood  look  comparatively 
colourless.  It  is  as  an  Autumn  sunset  shining  upon 
Autumn  leaves,  all  warm  and  glowing,  with  the 
glint  of  running  water  counterfeited  in  the  abun- 
dant silver  necklaces,  hair-ornaments,  bangles, 
and  anklets.  The  display  of  jewellery,  which  as- 
sumes a  snobbish  aspect  with  the  English,  never 
seems  excessive  in  the  native  woman.  I  have 
seen  her  laden  with  it,  and  yet  could  never  think 
to  myself,  ' '  You  would  look  far  better  if  you  left 
half  of  those  ornaments  at  home!  "  There  is  no 
"  snobbishness  "  in  the  Indian,  except  in  the  case 
of  the  Europeanised  native. 

The  fun  of  an  Indian  fair  is  noisy  and  demon- 
strative; the  merry-go-round  is  a  feature  of  it,  and 
the  music  is  of  the  loudest.  There  are  the  Oriental 
equivalents  of  all  the  itinerant  entertainers  to 
which  one  is  accustomed  in  the  West,  and  the 
trash  offered  for  sale  is  quite  equal  to  that  pur- 
chased at  a  charity  bazaar.  As  a  rule,  every  one 
has  money  to  spend,  for  all  have  been  saving  up 
for  this  day  for  months  past  and  temptation  to 


In  the  Sunshine  153 

spend  it  is  spread  around.  A  nation  which 
"thinks  in  cowrie  shells"  (whereof  a  hundred 
go  to  a  penny)  can  probably  make  sixpence  go 
farther  than  any  other,  and  enjoy  the  going  of  it 
more  than  a  people  to  whom  the  patronage  of  a 
penny-in-the  slot  machine  means  a  bagatelle  and 
not  a  day's  wage  expended.  The  slot-machines 
of  India  would  have  to  be  manufactured  to  re- 
spond to  cowrie  shells. 

I  have  altogether  forgotten  fireworks,  which  are 
a  distinct  item  in  the  list  of  native  amusements. 
The  evenings  are  cool,  fine  nights  can  be  dis- 
counted, and  the  form  of  entertainment  is  one  you 
can  enjoy  sitting  at  your  ease  on  the  ground. 
That  meets  every  requirement  of  the  East,  and 
fireworks  are  one  of  the  most  popular  forms  of 
amusement.  Illuminations,  too,  must  be  men- 
tioned; to  a  people  accustomed  to  live  in  the  dark 
after  nightfall,  such  exhibitions  have  a  special 
delight,  and  the  Indian  chirdg,  or  oil-lamp,  espe- 
cially adapts  itself  to  the  occasion. 

If  a  contented  mind  is  a  continual  feast,  it 
should  take  little  to  make  the  native  happy,  for 
so  little  contents  him,  and  his  horizon  is  small. 
He  tires  slowly  of  a  toy,  and  in  this  his  otherwise 
childish  capacity  for  enjoyment  contrasts  with  the 
easily  tired  nature  of  English  children.  He  will 
listen  to  the  same  tune,  look  at  the  same  perform- 
ance repeated  over  and  over  again,  without  any 
apparent  diminution  of  satisfaction.  Music  and 
mirth  are  too  rare  in  his  life  to  bore  him  easily. 


154  Indian  Life 

He  cannot  have  too  much  of  a  good  thing,  and  his 
entertainments  are  seldom  affairs  of  less  than 
twelve  hours. 

I  have  left  to  the  last  perhaps  the  most  typical, 
as  it  certainly  is  the  most  contradictory,  example 
of  the  "  sunshine  of  life  "  in  India.  Were  I  asked 
which  was  the  happiest  moment  of  any  year  to  the 
average  native,  I  would  say,  without  hesitation, 
the  one  in  which  the  sky  was  dark  and  threaten- 
ing— the  breaking  of  the  monsoon.  There  is  no 
music  in  India  like  that  of  falling  rain  in  May  or 
June;  no  sunshine,  literal  or  metaphorical,  that 
can  bring  such  joy  as  the  clouds  which  sweep  up 
rrom  the  south-west.  What  the  rising  of  the  Nile 
is  to  the  Egyptian  fellah,  that  and  something 
more  is  the  breaking  of  the  rainy  season  to  the 
ryots.  Out  they  come  tumbling  from  huts  and 
hovels  at  the  first  pitter-patter  of  the  great  drops, 
their  grateful  eyes  lifted  to  the  skies,  and  the 
psean  of  thankfulness,  "IZdm,  Rdm,  Mahadeo!" 
bursting  from  their  lips.  Here  is  salvation,  here 
not  the  happiness  of  a  passing  hour,  but  security 
for  the  whole  year.  I  have  myself  in  that  arid 
land  felt  something  of  the  thrill  that  follows  the 
falling  of  rain  after  a  long,  hot  drought,  and  for 
the  poor  peasant — well,  it  may  be  a  paradox,  a 
contradiction  in  terms,  but  the  weeping  rain- 
clouds  bring  the  greatest  amount  of  sunshine  into 
his  life. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   GOLDEN  EAST 

WE    call    the   East  golden  and   India    the 
brightest  jewel  in   the   British   Crown. 
I^et  us  examine  physical  and  practical  facts  a 
little  more  closely,   and  see  whether  figurative 
fancies  are  founded  on  them. 

The  East  is  so  far  golden  that  it  is  certainly  a 
land  of  sunshine.  You  can  predict  a  fine  day  six 
months,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  six  years  ahead. 
Theoretically,  you  can  also  predict  a  rainy  one, 
but  the  clouds  are  not  so  consistent  as  the  sun- 
shine. The  rainy  season  sometimes  belies  its 
name,  and  then  comes  famine.  In  England  peo- 
ple grumble  at  meteorological  conditions;  curse 
the  unwelcome  rain,  protest  against  a  three  weeks' 
drought,  and  have  fault  to  find  with  fogs  and  east 
winds.  But,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  bronchial 
folk,  these  climatic  freaks  do  not  kill;  one  is  not 
dependent  on  the  skies  for  life  and  fortune.  The 
Indian  is.  Two  inches  of  rain  withheld  in  its 
due  season  will  destroy  more  human  life  than 
a  quarter  of  a  century  of  European  warfare,  and 


Indian  Life 


cause  as  much  human  suffering  as  Bonaparte  did 
in  his  career. 

A  very  worthy  Kentish  farmer  was  grumbling 
to  me  one  day  because  the  rainy  summer  had 
ruined  his  hops,  half  ruined  his  corn,  and  damaged 
his  hay.  "Are  your  wife  and  children  alive  ?  "  I 
asked  him.  He  replied,  with  some  surprise,  in 
the  affirmative.  '  '  Your  horses  seem  pretty 
sleek?"  I  observed.  He  admitted  they  were  in 
capital  condition.  "And  your  cows?"  Ah, 
they  had  done  well,  the  pasturage  was  good. 
"Poultry?"  The  wife  looked  after  them,  and 
she  had  not  complained.  "  You  have  not  been 
compelled  to  shut  up  your  house,  and  leave  it  to 
look  after  itself  whilst  you  emigrated?"  He 
thought  I  was  a  lunatic.  "  But  you  say  this  is 
the  very  worst  season  that  any  man  ever  suf- 
fered?" Of  that  he  was  perfectly  sure;  he  had 
not  paid  his  rent,  and  some  of  the  wages  bill 
would  have  to  come  out  of  his  pocket.  "  Well," 
I  said,  "  if  you  had  been  an  Indian  farmer,  and 
this  had  been  the  worst  season  that  any  man  ever 
suffered  from,  your  wife,  children,  horses,  stock, 
and  poultry  would  all  be  dead,  and,  presuming 
you  had  been  so  lucky  as  to  escape  with  your  life, 
you  would  be  handling  a  shovel  on  relief  works 
on  the  west  coast  of  Ireland."  "  Gor!  Get  out," 
he  said. 

But  the  analogy  is  absolutely  correct,  and 
the  possibility  of  such  an  experience  threatens 
millions  of  homes  every  year  in  India  in  that 


The  Golden  East  157 

acute  and  critical  time  when  the  rainy  season  is 
due. 

For  India  may  be  golden  in  legend,  but  is  not  a 
fruitful  garden  land  in  fact.  Take  it,  square  mile 
for  square  mile,  and  it  is  infinitely  more  barren 
than  fertile.  Outside  the  favoured  zones,  it  is,  in 
places  populously  inhabited,  less  fruitful  than 
Scotland,  whilst  vast  areas  are  waterless  desert 
and  sandy  waste.  You  may  pass  in  a  railway- 
carriage  for  hour  after  hour  through  long  tracts 
of  country,  where  the  spiritless  vegetation  and  the 
bare  rocky  hills  appal,  and  see  "crops  ' '  you  would 
think  only  fit  to  plough  into  the  ground. 

British  ideas  of  India  are  often  gathered  from 
those  rich  coastal  districts  which  they  first  settled, 
narrow  zones  for  the  most  part,  or  fertile  river 
basins  like  Bengal.  But  India  away  from  its 
rivers  and  its  cloud-catching  mountains  is  a  dry, 
drear  land,  and  the  popular  conception  of  its  tropic 
prodigality  is  completely  erroneous.  It  is  so  bar- 
ren of  timber,  for  instance,  that  the  soil  is  de- 
prived of  the  fertilising  elements  it  requires  by  the 
universal  use  of  cattle  manure  for  fuel,  and  so  dry 
that  the  fields  have  to  be  irrigated  by  the  primitive 
process  of  the  Persian  wheel,  where  a  man  on  a 
treadmill  doles  the  water  out  of  a  well  in  quarts  to 
dribble  it  over  his  fields  in  cupfuls. 

Nor  are  the  elements  man's  only  enemy.  Pesti- 
lence and  plague  scourge  him,  and  fever,  insidi- 
ously but  surely,  kills  more  every  year  than 
famine.  A  great  cholera-wave  or  a  plague 


158  Indian  Life 

visitation  startles  people,  and  arrests  the  attention 
by  the  suddenness  or  magnitude  of  its  holocaust. 
But  of  fever,  infinitely  the  greatest  death-dealer  in 
India,  comparatively  nothing  is  heard.  With  its 
alternate  shivering  and  burning  fits,  that  rack  the 
system,  it  is  as  common  in  many  places  as  influenza 
in  England.  You  see  a  man  huddled  up  on  the 
ground,  shaking  and  groaning,  and  hardly  trouble 
to  ask  "  What  's  the  matter? "  "  Oh,  it  's  only 
fever, ' '  comes  the  stereotyped  reply.  The  disease 
is  too  common  to  cause  the  slightest  surprise  or 
evoke  the  crudest  compassion.  The  victim  must 
go  through  his  bout.  He  is  left  on  the  ground, 
and,  when  the  fit  is  over,  gets  up  and  goes  about 
his  work,  and  continues  to  do  so  until  the  system 
is  worn  out  or  a  cold  contracted,  and  he  ' '  snuffs 
out. ' '  No  inconsiderable  portion  of  the  mortality 
in  India  is  "snuffing  out."  Sickness  is  bad 
enough  in  England,  where  there  is  a  doctor  in 
every  community,  but  in  India,  where  at  least  two 
hundred  million  persons  cannot  get  one  unless 
they  are  prepared  to  walk  or  be  carried  to  the 
dispensary,  which  may  be  twenty  or  fifty  miles 
away,  sickness  is  the  half-way  house  to  death. 

I  have  mentioned  the  word  plague,  and  the 
reader  has  probably  associated  it  with  the  bubonic 
plague;  but  there  are  other  plagues  in  Indian  life 
similar  to  those  which  the  Egyptians  suffered. 
Wild  beasts  and  venomous  reptiles  enter  into  the 
economy  of  daily  life  with  a  shocking  freedom. 
Of  savage  wild  beasts,  such  as  the  tiger  and  wolf, 


The  GoMen  East  159 

I  will  not  pause  to  write;  they  are  too  well  known 
by  repute.  But  many  a  peasant  s  life  is  rendered 
a  burden  to  him  by  wild  pig,  deer,  jackals,  and 
monkeys.  Where  a  man  is  dependent  on  the 
produce  of  an  acre  for  his  sustenance  for  a  year, 
any  of  the  above  can  dock  his  commissariat  con- 
siderably. The  mere  driving  of  them  away  con- 
stitutes a  serious  tax  on  his  time.  When  crops 
are  ripening,  it  means  a  month  of  wakeful  nights, 
perched  upon  a  platform  on  poles  stuck  in  his 
field,  and  I  have  often  been  aroused  in  camp  in  a 
wooded  country  by  the  voice  of  the  sleepy  watcher 
hooting  at  four-footed  depredators  through  the 
night.  And  this  brings  me  to  another  reflection. 
How  happy  would  the  British  agricultural 
labourer  be  if  deer  and  game  were  common  in 
their  fields  and  open  to  any  one  to  slay  and  eat! 
Most  parts  of  India  swarm  with  game;  hare, 
partridge,  and  quail  abound  round  every  village; 
many  cultivated  areas  are  devastated  by  deer,  ant- 
elope, and  wild  pig;  there  are  few  jungles  which 
do  not  harbour  pea-fowl  and  jungle-fowl,  and 
scarce  a  sheet  of  water  but  holds  teal  and  wild- 
duck.  But  the  Indian  peasant,  unless  he  is  a 
hunter  by  caste,  seldom  disturbs  them,  and  the 
men  who  starve  on  a  diet  of  pulse  and  millet  take 
no  advantage  of  the  sumptuous  feast  of  venison 
and  game  which  can  be  had  for  the  snaring.  In 
some  cases,  of  course,  it  may  be  against  their  caste 
to  eat  flesh,  but  in  numerous  instances  it  is  not, 
and  I  can  only  ascribe  to  the  native's  listless 


i6o  Indian  Life 

apathy  this  rejection  of  plenty  thrown  in  his  path. 
He  sadly  wants  a  few  lessons  in  the  finer  phases 
of  the  art  of  poaching.  Here,  at  least,  Nature  is 
bountiful  to  him,  and  he  takes  no  advantage  of 
her  bounty! 

Snakes,  scorpions,  and  centipedes  are  amongst 
the  inconveniences  of  native  life,  and  where  the 
population  goes  about  with  naked  feet,  the  risk  is 
much  greater  than  with  the  booted  European. 
Few  Hindus  will,  however,  kill  a  snake,  and  the 
foul  reptile  lives  and  deals  death  unscathed.  I 
have  seen  a  man  guide  one  out  of  his  path  with  a 
stick  to  the  accompaniment  of  apologetic  salaams 
and  prayers,  and  I  have  been  besought  on  bended 
knee  not  to  discharge  my  gun  at  one  at  which  it 
was  levelled!  To  the  lesser  pests  of  life,  flies, 
sand-flies,  mosquitoes,  et  hoc  genus,  the  native 
seems  impervious,  but  he  endures  much  tribula- 
tion from  vermin  of  an  unpleasant  nature. 

In  a  country  where  vegetarianism  is  adopted  by 
most  of  the  people,  you  would  think  the  art  of  fruit 
and  vegetable  growing  would  be  brought  to  a  high 
pitch.  But  such  is  not  the  case.  The  native  palate 
in  this  respect  is  terribly  coarse — I  am  talking  of 
the  commonalty — and  assimilates  unripe  fruit  and 
indigestible  roots  with  content,  not  to  say  gusto. 
Strong- flavoured  turnips  and  radishes  are  the 
varieties  chiefly  vended,  and  leaf  products  which 
are  equivalent  to  spinach,  but  lacking  its  delicacy 
of  flavour.  Two  or  three  of  the  indigenous  vege- 
tables commend  themselves  to  English  taste,  but 


The  Golden  East  161 

the  majority  are  such  as  we  would  toss  to  our 
cattle  and  sheep.  Few  countries  in  the  world  can 
grow  more  delicious  fruit  than  India,  and  those 
varieties  you  purchase  in  the  markets  of  Calcutta 
or  Bombay,  where  the  European  and  wealthy 
native  demand  has  made  their  cultivation  and  de- 
velopment profitable,  are  things  to  dream  about. 
But  they  are  Covent  Garden  luxuries  to  what  is 
obtainable  in  the  country  at  large.  The  peasant's 
mango  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  luscious  fruit 
of  Bombay  as  the  crab-apple  to  the  Ribstone  pip- 
pin, and  the  plantain  of  the  up-country  bazaar 
is  appropriately  named  the  "  horse-plantain." 

Meat  in  India  is  as  bad  as  it  can  scarcely  fail  to 
be  in  a  parched  land  were  you  have  to  kill  it  and 
eat  it  the  same  day.  The  favourite  flesh  of  the 
native  is  goat,  which  is  like  a  very  rank,  sapless, 
sinewy  mutton.  The  Mahomedans  eat  beef,  but  in 
the  Hindu  centres,  the  killing  of  kine  is  prohibited 
by  law.  Butter  and  milk  are  poor  in  quality,  but 
goat's  milk  may  be  accounted  an  exception. 
The  water  is  universally  bad,  and,  in  those  locali- 
ties where  "  tank  "  or  pond  water  has  to  be  used, 
too  vile  and  contaminated  to  be  described.  The 
contents  of  a  I/ondon  third-class  swimming-bath 
would  be  as  distilled  in  comparison. 

Food  grains,  except  some  of  the  better  classes  of 
wheat  and  rice,  are  inferior.  The  sowing  of  mixed 
crops  in  the  same  field,  and  the  crude  methods  of 
reaping,  threshing  with  cattle  treading  out  the 
straw,  and  winnowing — every  operation  conducted 


1 62  Indian  Life 

on  the  surface  of  the  bare  earth — make  the  bulk 
dirty  and  full  of  foreign  substances.  The  quality, 
too,  of  some  of  the  commoner  sorts  of  rice  renders 
it  unfit  for  European  consumption.  Probably  not 
more  than  a  third  of  the  natives  of  India  eat  rice 
as  a  regular  diet;  the  majority  exist  on  unleavened 
cakes,  called  chuppattis,  made  from  flour  of  in- 
ferior grains.  These  cakes  are  circular  in  shape, 
leathery  in  consistency,  and  flavourless.  They 
require  a  relish,  and  have  given  rise  to  the  chut- 
nies  and  condiments  associated  with  Indian 
dietary,  which  are  the  apotheosis  of  the  crude 
relishes  peculiar  to  the  different  countries  of  the 
Empire. 

Sweetmeats  hold  a  high  place,  and  the  sweet- 
meat shops  in  the  bazaar  present  a  pleasing  variety 
and  ingenuity,  but  the  ghee,  or  rancid  butter, 
which  enters  into  their  composition  renders  an 
appreciation  of  them  by  the  English  palate  impos- 
sible. Of  the  intoxicating  drinks,  the  use  of 
which  has  increased  under  British  rule,  there  is 
not  one,  with  the  exception  of  newly  drawn 
"  toddy,"  that  does  not  merit  the  usual  epithet  of 
"rank  poison."  They  are  chiefly  consumed  by 
the  lower  classes,  opium  being  the  aristocratic  in- 
toxicant of  the  East.  In  India,  it  is  swallowed, 
not  smoked,  as  in  China,  and  is  the  daily  vice  of 
countless  slaves  to  the  habit.  The  smoking  of 
bhang,  or  Indian  hemp,  is  very  common  amongst 
some  orders;  it  is  the  most  deleterious  of  drugs, 
producing  a  state  akin  to  delirium  tremens,  and  as 


The  Golden  East  163 

a  factor  in  crime  takes  the  place  of  drink  in  Eng- 
land. Amongst  the  wealthier  classes,  European 
wines  and  spirits  are  commonly  consumed,  though 
it  may  be  on  the  sly,  and  champagne  backed  with 
brandy  is  the  tipple  of  many  rajahs. 

Crime  and  litigation  give  plenty  of  work  in  the 
law  courts,  where  three  million  civil  suits  and  two 
million  criminal  cases  are  disposed  of  annually, 
or,  respectively,  one  in  a  hundred  and  one  in  a 
hundred  and  fifty  of  the  population — a  very  high 
average.  But  the  native  character  finds  a  positive 
charm  in  litigation.  If  lawyers  do  not  grow  fat  in 
India,  it  is  only  because  there  are  so  many  of 
them.  They  are  as  wolfish  as  the  usurers,  and, 
after  them,  the  principal  cause  of  the  impoverish- 
ment of  the  people.  A  vast  revenue  is  raised  by 
stamps,  every  approach  to  the  bench  of  justice 
having  to  be  made  on  stamped  paper,  and  court 
fees  are  one  of  the  heaviest  items  of  litigation. 
Although  it  is  unprofessional,  a  great  number  of 
native  lawyers  tout  for  clients,  and  as  a  body  they 
are  a  grabbing  lot. 

You  do  not  require  gold  to  pay  wages  in  the 
Golden  East,  where  silver  is  the  currency,  and 
bank  or  "  currency  "  notes  the  convenient  mone- 
tary medium  in  common  use.  These  notes  vary 
from  seven  and  eightpence  in  value  to  very  large 
amounts,  and  become,  in  process  of  circulation, 
almost  as  ' '  microbic ' '  as  the  coppers  of  the  coun- 
try. Sixteen  is  the  principal  numerical  factor; 
sixteen  annas  make  a  rupee,  sixteen  rupees  a  gold 


1 64  Indian  Life 

mohur,  and  it  enters  into  some  of  the  weights  and 
measures.  The  sixteen-times  multiplication  table 
is  one  of  the  stumbling-blocks  that  have  to  be 
surmounted. 

The  mention  of  wages  suggests  that  a  list  of 
those  I  paid  in  a  prosperous  tea-planting  district 
of  India  may  not  be  without  its  information.  The 
able-bodied  men  received  six  and  eightpence  a 
month,  common  coolies  five  and  fourpence, 
women  four  and  eightpence,  and  useful  boys  four 
shillings,  in  all  cases  with  huts  to  live  in,  but  no 
other  perquisites,  and,  of  course,  without  food. 
Men  in  superior  positions,  such  as  gangers  and 
overseers,  drew  from  eight  to  sixteen  shillings, 
and  the  head-carpenter  was  a  comparative  Crcesus 
on  twelve  pounds  a  year.  When  I  first  started,  in 
the  'seventies,  the  "English  writer,"  or  clerk,  was 
paid  two  pounds  a  month,  but  twenty-five  years 
later,  I  could  get  the  work  done  by  better  educated 
"  Baboos"  for  little  more  than  half  that  salary. 
For  less  than  three  pounds  a  month  I  engaged  a 
"  Doctor  Baboo,"  who  had  passed  through  the 
medical  schools  at  one  of  the  universities,  and 
was  a  qualified  medical  practitioner — "qualified  to 
kill,"  some  one  unkindly  suggested!  The  native 
engineer  who  had  charge,  and  drove  a  tolerable 
amount  of  machinery,  was  paid  two  pounds  a 
month.  All  these  figures  take  the  rupee  at  its 
present  exchange  value. 

These  may  seem  small  wages,  but  "  they  can 
live  on  half  their  pay,  and  save  the  other  half," 


The  Golden  East  165 

said  my  head  overseer  to  me  one  day  when  we 
were  discussing  matters.  And  then  he  explained 
how  a  man  on  five  and  fourpence  a  month  ex- 
pended sixteen-pence  on  thirty-two  pounds  of 
rice,  which  served  him  for  a  supper  for  as  many 
days,  eightpence  on  thirty  pounds  of  Indian  corn, 
which  provided  a  good  midday  meal,  and  eight- 
pence  on  such  luxuries  as  salt,  ghee,  condiments, 
and  lamp-oil;  total,  two  shillings  and  eightpence, 
on  which  expenditure  those  men  kept  themselves 
in  hard-working  condition,  able  to  do  ten  hours' 
hoeing  in  a  stiff  clay  soil,  a  task  from  which  most 
English  labourers  would  have  shied  off;  and  for 
carrying  burdens  no  English  porter  could  have 
competed  with  them.  I  have  frequently  de- 
spatched a  man  with  a  load  of  sixty  or  seventy 
pounds  weight  on  a  twenty-four  mile  journey, 
and  he  did  it,  both  literally  and,  in  English  slang, 
"  on  his  head  " — carrying  the  burden  I  allude  to. 
It  may  be  said  that  the  Indians  as  a  nation  are 
as  much  boggled  in  debt  as  the  Government  of 
Turkey  or  some  of  the  South  American  Republics, 
and  with  as  little  chance  of  paying  off  their  lia- 
bilities. The  rate  of  interest  in  India  is  usually 
twenty-four  per  cent,,  sometimes  twelve,  very 
rarely  nine,  and  frequently  thirty  and  thirty-six. 
The  banks  habitually  charge  the  up-country  Euro- 
pean ten  per  cent.  It  is  a  curious  thing  that  the 
native,  perhaps  the  most  thrifty,  prudent,  and 
economical  man  in  the  world  after  the  Chinese, 
should  be  utterly  reckless  in  borrowing  and 


1 66  Indian  Life 

litigation.  A  portion  of  his  neediness  arises  no 
doubt  from  want,  owing  to  bad  seasons;  but  in  that 
case  he  goes  to  the  shopkeeper,  who,  although  a 
grasping  individual,  is  moderation  compared  to 
the  extortion  of  the  usurer.  It  is  for  his  cere- 
monial expenses,  his  marryings  and  his  funerals, 
that  the  native  runs  into  debt  headlong  and 
blindly.  The  curse  oi  custom  compels  him  to 
this,  for  it  insists  he  shall  be  lavish.  The  debt, 
too,  is  regarded  as  one  of  honour,  and  although 
he  may  willingly  seek  to  repudiate  or  wriggle  out 
of  a  commercial  obligation,  his  code  demands  that 
he  shall  not  deny  the  liability  incurred  for  the  ex- 
ecution of  a  religious  duty.  Moreover,  for  a  man 
who  thinks  in  shell  coinage,  it  is  difficult  to  at- 
tempt to  shuffle  out  of  a  situation  which  requires 
him  to  expend  in  one  week  a  sum  equal  to  many 
years'  income;  his  very  character  is  bound  up  in 
the  glory  of  that  reckless  week;  it  would  never  do 
to  say  it  had  cost  him  only  five  or  six  pounds 
when  all  the  world  had  assessed  the  expenditure 
necessary  on  such  festivities  at  ten  or  twenty. 

If  he  has  land,  the  peasant  can  always  raise  a 
loan,  but  seldom  if  ever  comes  the  season  when 
the  land  can  repay  it.  And  the  usurer  who  holds 
the  mortgage-deed  has  the  law  court  to  go  to,  that 
fount  of  British  justice  which  will  place  him  in 
possession  of  his  own,  as  it  has  done.  "  Under 
the  British  Government  the  land  in  India  has,  to 
a  large  extent,  passed  away  from  the  cultivator," 
writes  Sir  George  Wingate,  with  the  weight  of 


The  Golden  East  167 

authority.  "  In  Assam,  sixty-eight,  and  in  the 
North-west  Provinces,  nearly  forty-eight  per  cent, 
of  the  landlords  are  of  the  money-lending  class. 
In  the  Punjab,  the  change  is  fraught  with  grave 
political  danger." 

The  despotism  of  usury  is  weighing  heavily  on 
the  Golden  Hast.  Under  native  rule,  these  things 
adjusted  themselves  in  the  throes  of  periodical 
change,  and  the  absence  of  smooth-working  legal 
machinery.  But  under  the  Pax  Britannica,  too 
many  scoundrels,  who  prey  upon  the  ignorant 
and  poor,  come  by  other  people's  property  which 
they  claim  as  their  own  on  the  strength  of  a  lia- 
bility much  more  than  half  of  which  is  accrued 
compound  interest.  The  place  of  the  predatory 
Pindaris  of  the  past,  who  lived  by  foray  and  ra- 
pine, has  been  taken  by  the  money-lender  and  the 
lawyer,  and  these  latter  are  the  blood-sucking 
vampires  who  have  battened  on  the  want  and  wit- 
lessness  of  a  population  sunk  in  ignorance  and 
apathy,  and,  under  the  shadow  of  British  justice, 
live  and  thrive  on  the  gains  of  injustice. 

The  Golden  East!  You  have  but  to  scratch  the 
plating  with  the  nail  of  your  forefinger  to  find 
that  it  is  a  mere  tinsel  thing  which  disguises  about 
as  much  real  prosperity  as  the  phrase  "  the  good 
old  days  when  George  the  Third  was  King!  " 


CHAPTER  XII 

ON  THE   PATH   OF  PROGRESS 

is  not  dead  in  India.  The  Unchanging 
East  abides,  though  not  without  betray- 
ing by  the  hem  of  its  garments  what  ways  it  has 
been  forced  to  walk  in." 

What  ways  are  those  ?  You  may  summarise 
them  as  the  Path  of  Progress.  The  Unchanging 
East,  after  reclining  for  two  thousand  years  on  a 
civilisation  established  before  Christ  was  born,  has 
within  the  last  three  decades  begun  to  stir  on  its 
couch,  to  look  around  it,  to  stretch  out  its  foot, 
feeling  the  path. 

The  rude  hand  of  the  West  has  been  laid  on  its 
shoulder  and  shaken  it  from  its  long  sleep,  and 
the  historian  of  Hindustan  must  date  the  awaken- 
ing of  India  from  the  second  half  of  the  Victorian 
era.  Let  us  count  a  few  of  the  milestones  on  this 
path  which  is  just  begun. 

First  and  foremost  is  the  Suez  Canal.  Then 
steam  communication  with  the  West,  railways, 
telegraphs,  a  halfpenny  post,  irrigation,  a  fixed 
standard  of  silver,  and  education.  These  are  the 
factors  that  are  changing  the  Unchanging  East. 
1 68 


On  the  Path  of  Progress      169 

The  path  has  been  rapidly  made;  the  sleepers  are 
aroused  and  bidden  to  walk  upon  it.  Whither 
shall  it  lead  them  ?  Are  they,  who  have  only  just 
awakened  from  this  long  sleep,  fit  to  walk  ?  Those 
who  have  ventured  the  first  mile,  do  they  walk 
sedately  ?  Is  the  path  of  progress  suited  to  the 
genius  of  the  Unchanging  East  ? 

Quien  sabe?  Time  alone  can  tell.  Current 
opinion  cannot  focus  current  history.  All  we  can 
do  is  to  write  the  chronicle  of  change  as  it  appears 
to  us;  to  note  facts  and  leave  inferences  to  a 
future  when  their  value  may  be  better  discrim- 
inated and  judged.  We  are  too  near  the  stage 
where  the  transformation  scene  is  being  set. 

Let  us  glance  first  at  education,  which  has  been 
brought  within  the  reach  of  the  great  unread.  In 
the  opinion  of  some,  it  has  not  been  an  unmixed 
blessing.  In  general,  it  has  turned  the  muddy  end 
of  the  stick  into  the  handle,  and,  in  particular, 
has  detached  the  ferrule  from  the  performance  of 
its  proper  functions. 

The  Indian  aristocracy  and  gentry  is  a  little 
apt,  like  the  English  peerage  in  a  previous  cen- 
tury, to  consider  itself  above  the  vulgar  necessity 
of  education.  One  of  the  privileges  of  being  rich 
is  being  ignorant.  Moreover,  under  the  system  of 
education  which  has  been  introduced,  a  levelling 
tendency  has  crept  in,  which  is  foreign  to  the 
spirit  of  caste.  In  the  Government  schools  there 
is  a  mingling  of  all  ranks  of  society,  and,  as  a  fact, 
the  trading  castes,  which  are  quite  contemptible 


i7°  Indian  Life 

to  the  priestly  and  warrior  ones,  are  most  numer- 
ously represented.  If  in  England  reading  and 
writing  could  only  be  acquired  through  the  me- 
dium of  board  schools,  they  might  not  be  such  uni- 
versal accomplishments  amongst  the  aristocracy. 

The  Hindus  are  people  of  receptive  intellect, 
and  have  a  remarkable  facility  for  assimilating 
knowledge.  In  addition,  they  are  marvellously 
industrious  and  painstaking.  They  have  learned 
that  knowledge  is  power — the  only  power  within 
their  reach.  In  the  scheme  of  their  society,  the 
Brahmins  have  ever  been  the  brain-power,  and, 
even  in  the  days  of  Mahomedan  ascendency, 
directed  the  administration.  For  centuries,  they 
monopolised  the  higher  education  amongst  men, 
as  nautch-girls  did  amongst  women.  When 
schools  and  universities  were  introduced,  the  in- 
ferior castes  were  not  slow  to  perceive  the  op- 
portunity which  education  afforded  of  rising  to 
dignity,  power,  and  emolument  undreamed  of 
before.  And  although  the  subtle  Brahmin  brain 
still  retains  its  ascendency,  cunning  commercial 
intelligence  is  fast  shouldering  it. 

Thus  education  is  beginning  to  sap  at  the  very 
foundations  of  Hindu  civilisation;  it  is  appropriat- 
ing the  power  which  has  hitherto  been  the  mono- 
poly of  the  priestly  caste  for  the  lower  orders. 
The  native  has  his  son  taught  English  with  one 
sole  aim  in  view — a  Government  appointment. 
There  are,  of  course,  other  occupations  to  fall  back 
upon,  such  as  the  law,  a  commercial  clerkship, 


On  the  Path  of  Progress 

and  so  forth.  But  the  come-down  is  as  great  as 
that  of  an  Englishman  who,  having  crammed  for 
the  Indian  Civil,  is  compelled  to  accept  an  appoint- 
ment in  a  bank,  or  find  refuge  in  the  overstocked 
ranks  of  the  bar. 

The  Government  appointments  are  few,  and  the 
applicants  many,  for  the  Indian  universities  turn 
out  their  wares  by  the  thousand  annually,  and  the 
schools  by  tens  of  thousands.  The  ware  is  often 
Brummagem,  for  whilst  you  can  polish  the  Hindu 
intellect  to  a  very  high  pitch,  you  cannot  temper 
the  Hindu  character  with  those  moral  and  manly 
qualities  which  are  essential  for  the  positions  he 
seeks  to  fill.  Moreover,  the  loaves  and  fishes  fall 
far  short  of  the  multitude,  and  the  result  is  the 
creation  of  armies  of  hungry  "  hopefuls" — the 
name  is  a  literal  translation  of  the  vernacular  gen- 
eric term  omSdwdr  used  in  describing  them — who 
pass  their  lives  in  absolute  idleness,  waiting  on 
the  skirts  of  chance,  or  gravitate  to  courses  en- 
tirely opposed  to  those  which  education  intended. 

I  have  often  talked  the  matter  over  with  native 
friends  in  the  district  where  I  resided,  in  which 
was  a  high  school  where  English  was  taught  up 
to  a  fairly  superior  standard.  It  was  well  at- 
tended by  the  sons  of  small  traders  and  well-to-do 
farmers,  who  formed  as  good  material  to  draw  de- 
ductions from  as  you  could  wish.  The  first  thing 
to  be  noted  from  the  education  their  boys  received 
was  that  it  rendered  them  absolutely  unfitted  for 
the  occupations  their  fathers  followed  in  a  land 


i;2  Indian  Life 

where  callings  are  hereditary;  the  second  that  it 
filled  them  with  an  overweening  false  pride,  and 
taught  them  to  despise  their  fathers. 

"  My  sons  are  no  good  to  me  whatever,"  sighed 
my  head-overseer  to  me  constantly,  who  had  sent 
his  two  boys  to  be  educated,  and  never  ceased 
regretting  it.  "They  are  too  fine  to  put  their 
hands  to  honest  work  as  I  have  done  these  twenty 
years  past.  They  will  not  even  look  after  the 
farm  at  home,  because  they  are  'educated.'  They 
can  get  no  employment  through  their  education, 
and  all  they  do  is  to  swagger  about  the  house  like 
young  rajahs,  spend  money,  live  in  idleness, 
laugh  at  or  abuse  every  one  on  the  strength  of 
their  superior  know'.sdge,  and  constantly  disgrace 
themselves  because  they  have  no  work  to  do  to 
keep  them  out  of  mischief!  I  wish  to  God  I  had 
never  sent  them  to  school.  But  I  had  an  idea 
they  would  both  rise  to  be  magistrates  and 
judges."  The  same  opinion,  in  substance,  was 
repeated  to  me  by  man}'  other  fathers,  and  the 
local  schoolboy  came  to  be  a  byword  for  the  effete, 
impudent,  and  useless.  I  have  heard  my  coolie 
boys  use  their  condition  as  a  term  of  contempt: 
"  He  cannot  prune  any  better  than  a  schoolboy," 
they  would  say  of  a  new  hand,  with  a  twinkle  in 
their  eyes  as  they  glanced  in  the  direction  of  the 
overseer. 

Of  these  educated  youths,  at  least  ninety  per 
cent,  were  choked  off  higher  studies  by  the  ex- 
pense of  the  university,  and  left  neither  fish,  flesh, 


On  the  Path  of  Progress       173 

fowl,  nor  good  red  herring,  but  useful  subjects 
spoilt  by  the  useless  smattering  of  English  which 
they  had  received.  What  of  the  other  ten  per  cent.  ? 
A  great  percentage  failed  to  pass  their  degrees,  and 
returned  to  the  ranks  of  the  unemployed.  The 
rest,  having  acquired  the  right  to  the  letters  B. A. 
after  their  names,  joined  the  army  of  "  hopefuls," 
and  proceeded  to  squat  down  on  their  haunches 
and  wait.  But  the  call  seldom  came,  and  after  a 
time  they  filtered  into  the  legal  profession,  and 
battened  on  the  native  love  for  litigation,  or  be- 
came demagogues  and  aired  their  opinions  in  the 
native  Press,  which  is  often  scurrilous  and  disloyal. 
English  education  is  the  natural  beginning  of 
Europeanising.  Very  early  in  the  day  it  takes 
the  form  of  modifying  the  native  costume,  and 
the  native  discontinues  shaving  his  head,  adopts 
tailor-made  garments,  takes  to  wearing  shoes  and 
stockings,  and  only  retains  his  turban  as  the  link 
between  him  and  the  caste  he  has  practically  re- 
nounced. And  now  his  soul  begins  to  expand, 
and  he  apes  the  sahib.  The  transformation  has  a 
wondrous  effect  on  his  humbler  brethren,  who 
flatter  and  fawn  on  him,  whereby  his  conceit  rises 
like  the  mercury  in  hot  weather.  He  adopts  the 
"  English  air,"  and  becomes  bumptious;  certain 
it  is  his  manners  are  not  improved,  who  mistakes 
a  vulgar  self-assertion  for  independence.  And  he 
looks  on  the  wine  when  it  is  red.  Such  conduct, 
when  the  beverage  is  English  brandy,  is  a  parting 
from  the  ways  of  caste. 


174  Indian  Life 

Having  thus  broken  free  from  the  shackles  of 
his  birth,  he  desires  to  distinguish  himself  in  a 
sphere  cognate  to  his  new  acquirements,  and  de- 
cides on  making  a  start  in  Nukkle  Stuff,  which 
being  interpreted  means  "  L,ocal  Self-Govern- 
ment." 

The  principle  of  representative  government 
has  of  recent  years  been  started  in  India  by 
the  creation  of  municipalities  and  local  and  dis- 
trict boards,  some  of  the  seats  on  which  are  filled 
by  election.  The  native  is  absolutely  apathetic 
about  them,  and  when  he  takes  the  trouble  to  vote 
is  usually  guided  by  the  caste  of  the  candidate. 
The  Buropeanised  native,  with  his  glib  tongue, 
his  superior  education,  his  assurance,  and  his  flat- 
tery, an  art  he  has  by  no  means  forgotten,  experi- 
ences no  difficulty  in  getting  elected.  He  now 
begins  to  practice  the  craft  of  oratory,  and  works 
on  the  minds  of  men.  He  is  soon  deep  in  jobbery 
and  corruption,  as  the  municipalities  of  Bombay 
and  Calcutta  have  demonstrated.  Every  Indian 
Nukkle  Stuff  is  a  Tammany  Hall  on  a  small  scale. 

From  this  sphere  the  next  step  is  to  become  a 
"  Congress-  Wallah"  which  is  the  height  of  his 
ambition.  In  the  reign  of  Lord  Ripon  there  was 
a  departure  in  English  policy,  and  the  principles  of 
liberalism  were  sought  to  be  introduced  into  the 
conservatism  of  the  Hindus.  It  awakened  new 
aspirations  in  the  breast  of  the  native  who  was 
educated,  and  from  those  aspirations  sprang  a 
National  Congress,  or  annual  gathering  of  repre- 


On  the  Path  of  Progress       175 

sentatives  from  all  parts  of  India,  whose  adver- 
tised aim  was  to  ' '  bring  all  men  of  light  and 
leading  together,  to  foster  a  public  spirit,  to  edu- 
cate the  people,  and  familiarise  them  with  the 
working  of  representative  institutions,  and  to 
demonstrate  to  the  British  Government  that  India 
is  ripe  for  self-government." 

Theoretically  a  noble  programme;  but  in  prac- 
tice it  began  by  passing  resolutions  approving  the 
abolition  of  the  Council  of  the  Secretary  of  State 
for  India,  recommended  holding  the  Indian  Civil 
Service  examinations  in  India  for  half  the  ap- 
pointments, the  sanctioning  of  a  native  volunteer 
corps,  and  the  repeal  of  the  Arms  Act.  I  need 
not  quote  more  of  a  policy  which,  if  adopted, 
would  place  arms  in  the  hands  of  the  natives  to 
deluge  the  land  in  blood  directly  native  adminis- 
tration and  representative  institutions  brought 
Hindus  and  Mahomedans — ever  ready  to  fly  at 
each  other's  throats — in  contact.  And  when  these 
proposals  are  made  by  the  spokesmen,  self-elected, 
of  effeminate  races,  who  shudder  at  the  sight  of  a 
drawn  sword,  they  dwindle  into  a  farce.  Nor  are 
they  regarded  as  anything  better  than  a  farce  in 
India,  where  the  Mahomedans  despise  the  Con- 
gress, the  native  nobility  holds  contemptuously 
aloof  from  it,  the  peasant  does  not  even  know  of 
its  existence,  and  the  native  Press  derides  it. 

But  the  Congress-  Wallah  is  blessed  with  brazen 
lungs  and  assurance,  and  able  to  make  himself 
heard  far  and  wide;  he  has  a  catchy  cry,  "  India 


i;6  Indian  Life 

for  the  Indians,"  and  it  finds  an  echo  in  some 
quarters  in  England,  where  there  are  folk  who 
take  him  seriously.  Self-government  in  India  is 
impossible;  the  country  is  too  cosmopolitan,  the 
racial  hatreds  too  intense.  But  self-government 
under  the  Congress-  Wallah,  who  represents  the 
failures  amongst  those  who  set  forth  to  win 
official  employ,  is  a  contingency  too  ludicrous  to 
contemplate  what  time  the  fierce  Mahomedans, 
the  stalwart  Sikhs,  and  the  fighting  Rajpoots  — 
silent  folks  at  present — shall  begin  to  take  an  in- 
terest in  the  problem.  And,  after  all,  what  is  the 
so-called  National  Congress  but  a  debating  so- 
ciety, which  represents  the  Empire  as  little  as  the 
Oxford  Union  Society  represents  the  United  King- 
dom— nay,  less;  for  whereas  the  Oxford  under- 
graduate illustrates  much  that  is  best  and  most 
virile  in  our  life,  the  Congress-  Wallah  merely 
represents  himself,  who  is  but  a  cheap  stucco 
image  operating  on  a  wind-bag. 

This  digression  has  taken  me  rather  further 
than  I  intended.  The  moral  I  would  draw  is  that 
Western  education  grafted  on  Eastern  character 
is  an  impossible  combination.  "  The  educated 
native,"  says  Mr.  Lilly,  in  his  admirable  book  on 
the  Problems  of  India,  "is  in  no  sense  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  great  mass  of  the  inhabitants 
of  India,  and  has  no  sort  of  influence  with  them. 
The  vast  bulk  of  the  population,  the  cultivators 
of  the  land,  know  and  care  nothing  about  him. 
The  hardy  warlike  races,  who  furnish  our  best 


On  the  Path  of  Progress       177 

soldiers,  utterly  despise  him.  He  is  not,  ordi- 
narily, a  product  of  whom  our  rule  should  be 
proud."  And  yet  he  is  the  foremost  representa- 
tive on  the  path  of  progress,  and  the  man  who 
aspires  to  take  the  reins  from  English  hands. 
And  he  is  what  English  education  has  made  him: 
a  poor  thing — but  their  own! 

There  are  those  who  believe  that  if  ever  another 
rebellion  breaks  out  in  India  it  will  be  at  the  in- 
stigation of  the  educated  classes,  and  that  the 
danger  lies  in  the  mischievous  and  disloyal  propa- 
ganda of  the  Bengali  Baboos  and  the  Mahratta 
Brahmins.  Should  these  predictions  be  fulfilled, 
the  Congress-  Wallah  will  have  justified  himself, 
for  he  prints  and  preaches  veiled  sedition.  The 
question  remains  whether  England  shall  have 
justified  her  system,  which  has  created  a  breed  of 
demagogues  in  a  land  of  fanatical  racial  hatreds, 
and  a  host  of  "  young  hopefuls,"  who,  in  learning 
to  speak  English  in  broken  periods,  have  grown 
too  proud  to  earn  their  own  bread  in  their  heredi- 
tary callings. 

It  is  a  pleasant  transition  to  the  material  pro- 
gress of  India.  The  expanding  revenue  is  the  best 
index  to  its  commercial  as  distinct  from  its  rural 
prosperity.  The  country  has  been  seamed  with  a 
network  of  railways,  so  that  you  can  now  travel 
from  Cape  Comorin  to  Peshawur,  or  from  Karachi 
to  Assam,  without  changing  carriages;  it  has 
been  opened  out  with  roads  and  bridges  that  have 
brought  the  farthest  jungles  into  communication 


178  Indian  Life 

with  the  busy  centres  of  life.  For  eightpence  you 
can  despatch  a  telegram  two  thousand  miles,  and 
the  halfpenny  post  has  been  an  institution  any 
time  within  these  past  thirty  years.  The  prices 
current  of  European  markets  are  known  in  India 
within  an  hour  of  their  being  shouted  on  the  Ex- 
changes of  the  Continent,  and  people  grumble  if 
their  correspondence  with  England  takes  a  fort- 
night in  its  transit.  The  Government  has  re- 
claimed enormous  tracts  of  waste  land  with  the 
finest  system  of  irrigation  in  the  world,  run  canals 
through  arid  provinces,  and  battled  with  famine 
with  an  energy  that  has  halved  its  horrors.  The 
development  of  the  industrial  resources  of  the 
country  has  been  equally  remarkable.  Bombay 
is  a  city  of  cotton  mills,  cotton  presses,  and  gin- 
ning factories;  the  exports  of  grain  from  India 
exceed  thirty  million  hundredweights;  Calcutta 
sends  out  its  shiploads  of  jute  by  the  hundred  from 
the  magnificent  mills  erected  to  deal  with  the 
fibre.  The  tea,  coffee,  and  indigo  concerns  num- 
ber considerably  over  a  thousand;  with  tea  more 
than  half  a  million  acres  are  planted,  producing  a 
hundred  and  eighty  million  pounds,  and  repre- 
senting twenty  millions  sterling  invested,  whilst 
coffee  exports  thirty-two  million  pounds,  and  in- 
digo from  India  is  still  held  to  be  the  best  dye  in 
the  world.  Coal  is  one  of  the  most  promising 
industries,  and  there  are  very  rich  gold  mines  in 
the  Madras  presidency.  Western  civilisation,  en- 
ergy, and  capital  have  developed  all  these  and 


On  the  Path  of  Progress      179 

many  other  industries;  have  found  markets  for 
them,  and,  more  important  still,  the  means  of 
getting  the  produce  to  the  markets.  Their  estab- 
lishment has  created  a  revolution  in  the  industrial 
life  of  India,  which,  although  it  possessed  all  these 
resources,  was  never  able  to  utilise  them  until 
British  rule  brought  peace  to  pursue  the  arts  of 
peace,  and  enterprise  to  push  them  forward. 

Nor  can  I  pass  over  "  fixity  of  exchange  "  with- 
out mention.  India  is  a  land  of  silver  currency, 
for  you  never  see  a  golden  coin  in  circulation 
there.  So  long  as  silver  retained  its  old  relative 
value  to  gold,  and  the  rupee  could  be  exchanged 
for  a  florin,  which  it  approximated  in  weight, 
there  were  no  fiscal  difficulties  in  the  way  of  com- 
merce. But  as  gold  began  to  become  ' '  appreci- 
ated, ' '  and  the  discoveries  of  mountains  of  silver 
deteriorated  the  value  of  that  metal,  the  Indian 
rupee  dropped  in  value,  till  you  could  only  ex- 
change it  for  a  shilling  of  English  coinage,  that 
was  sustained  by  a  gold  reserve.  The  inherent 
speculations  of  commerce  were  doubled  and  tripled 
by  the  speculations  of  exchange,  until  Lord  Elgin 
grasped  the  bull  by  the  horns,  and  boldly  fixed 
the  rate  at  which  the  raw  metal  should  be  issued 
from  the  mints  of  India,  irrespective  of  its  intrinsic 
worth.  By  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  a  gold  standard 
was  established  in  a  country  of  silver  currency, 
and  the  rupee  became  a  fixed  instead  of  a  fluctuat- 
ing token.  Had  India  been  left  to  its  own  re- 
sources in  the  economical  crisis  that  was  brought 


i8o  Indian  Life 

about  by  the  depreciation  of  silver,  her  currency 
would  have  been  halved  in  value  as  a  purchasing 
power  in  countries  where  the  standard  is  a  gold 
one,  and  she  must  have  been  shut  off  from  many 
of  the  Western  luxuries  she  now  enjoys,  whose 
prices  would  have  been  increased  thirty-three  per 
cent,  in  her  own  coinage,  as  compared  to  what 
they  are  to-day. 

"  Si  monumentum  requiris,  circumspice  I " 
What  the  English  have  accomplished  in  India 
must  ever  be  the  best  monument  of  their  right  to 
be  there.  There  are  those  who  have  cried, 
"  Perish  India!  " — the  best  way  to  bring  about 
that  result  would  be  to  withdraw  from  ruling  it. 
For  the  edifice  they  have  reared,  and  are  rearing, 
needs  the  eye  and  the  genius  of  the  architect  to 
continue  its  building.  The  foundation  is  the  Un- 
changing Bast,  but  the  stones  are  carried  from  the 
West.  There  is  no  builder  in  the  Orient  who  can 
take  charge  of  the  plan,  which  is  assuredly  the 
boldest  experiment  that  the  English,  the  only  suc- 
cessful Empire-builders  in  the  world  of  to-day, 
have  ever  attempted. 


ANGLO-INDIAN  LIFE 


181 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  LAND  OF  EXILE 

INDIA  has  often  been  called  "The  Land  of 
1  Regrets."  It  is  the  logical  result  of  exile. 
The  pervading  sentiment  in  Anglo-Indian  life  is 
the  consciousness  of  exile;  the  dearest  word  and 
thought,  "  Home."  And  yet,  curiously  enough, 
there  are  few  retired  Anglo-Indians  who  are  not 
often  heard  to  wish  themselves  back  in  India! 

I  have  never  been  able  to  decide  in  my  mind 
whether  the  charms  of  Anglo-Indian  life  outbal- 
anced its  defects.  It  is  such  a  mass  of  contradic- 
tions; of  sunshine  and  gloom,  of  luxury  and 
squalor,  of  comfort  and  discomfort.  You  recall 
one  phase  with  delight  to  shrink  at  the  reminis- 
cence of  another.  India  is  something  more  than 
a  foreign  country,  it  is  a  fantastic  country,  and  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  come  at  a  comparison  be- 
tween the  conditions  there  and  those  in  England, 
because  they  differ  as  much  as  life  at  sea  and  on 
shore. 

People  in  England  have  a  habit  of  beginning 
all  conversations  with  a  reference  to  the  weather; 
this  can  hardly  be  avoided  when  you  come  to  talk 
183 


1 84  Indian  Life 

of  India,  for  the  climatic  conditions  dominate  life 
there,  and  make  it  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year 
an  indoor  one.  Take  a  census  of  the  European 
population  any  time  between  ten  and  four,  from 
March  to  September,  and  you  shall  find  it  in- 
doors. This,  of  course,  is  a  very  stale  piece  of  in- 
formation, and  you  may  retort  that  all  office-men 
and  most  women  in  England  suffer  the  same  con- 
finement. True,  but  from  a  very  different  neces- 
sity, and  under  very  different  conditions.  There 
are  times  on  a  hot  summer's  day  when  indoors 
becomes  oppressive  even  in  England :  it  is  always 
oppressive  in  India.  At  seasons  it  is  overpower- 
ingly  so,  as  when  you  live  for  two  or  three  months 
at  a  stretch  in  a  bath  of  perspiration,  and  wonder 
whether  you  will  ever  know  what  it  is  to  be  cool 
again.  It  debilitates  and  depresses;  the  punkah 
that  sways  above  you  with  its  drowsy  rise  and 
fall,  and  keeps  you  imprisoned  to  a  square  of  the 
carpet,  is  either  an  irritant  or  a  soporific;  the 
darkened  room  affects  you  with  the  sadness  of  a 
perpetual  twilight.  Life  resolves  itself  into  a 
negative  state,  and  inanition  supervenes  on 
apathy.  There  are  six  hundred  minutes  in  some 
Indian  hours,  I  am  sure,  and  not  one  of  them 
bearable. 

The  new  arrival,  in  his  fever  of  Saxon  energy 
and  impatience,  puts  on  a  hat  (that  is  in  itself  a 
handicap  on  ordinary  comfort)  and  makes  a 
plunge  into  the  roasting  sunshine.  If  under  such 
conditions  you  can  train  your  mind  to  think  of 


The  Land  of  Exile  185 

anything  so  delicious  as  an  icy  blast,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  east  wind  is  tempered  to  the  shorn 
lamb;  for  it  is  undoubtedly  the  case  that  the 
"Griffin" — who  corresponds  to  the  "New  Chum" 
of  the  Colonies — feels  or  fears  the  heat  much  less 
than  the  presumably  hardened  old  stager.  I  can- 
not explain  this,  but  it  is  notorious,  and  the  old 
Anglo-Indian  who  returns  to  England  will  often 
find  its  summer  temperature  more  oppressive  than 
a  man  who  has  never  experienced  a  tropical 
one. 

But  when  you  have  dared  the  sun,  and  are  once 
out  of  doors  in  India,  what  do  you  gain  by  it  ?  I 
vow  the  only  thing  more  physically  disagreeable 
than  indoors  is  out  of  doors,  and  you  must  be  very 
much  in  a  hurry  to  see  the  country  to  stick  to  the 
exchange.  There  is  nothing  to  recommend  it, 
and  your  last  state  is  worse  than  your  first.  There 
are  only  heat,  glare,  dust,  thirst,  perspiration,  flies, 
and  a  conviction  that  you  are  not  in  your  proper 
element;  and  that  is  what  makes  the  imprison- 
ment of  indoor  life  in  India  so  hard  to  suffer  — 
there  is  absolutely  no  refuge  from  it. 

Except  for  the  members  of  the  commercial  com- 
munity, India  is  a  land  of  locomotion  and  un- 
settled habitation.  Two  or  three  years  in  any 
one  "  station,"  as  towns  are  called,  is  the  utmost 
that  can  be  anticipated.  No  man  lays  himself 
out  for  a  long  residence  any  where,  and  a  perma- 
nent home  is  an  unknown  quantity  to  the  ma- 
jority of  Anglo-Indians,  whose  life  is  practically 


1 86  Indian  Life 

passed  in  a  succession  of  furnished  apartments. 
Far  more  often  than  not  his  furniture  is  hired, 
and  his  bungalow  rented  on  a  monthly  tenancy, 
so  that  he  may  always  be  ready  to  strike  his  tents 
and  shift  station  at  the  shortest  notice.  A  man 
deems  himself  lucky  who  is  permitted  to  pass  four 
undisturbed  years  in  one  district. 

It  must  not  be  presumed  from  my  reference  to 
furnished  apartments  that  there  are  such  con- 
veniences in  the  East,  except  in  the  sense  that 
house  and  furniture  are  both  rented.  In  city  life, 
a  few  men  reside  in  hotels,  which  are  cheaper  in 
India  than  anywhere  I  know  of  in  the  world,  the 
charge  being  seven  to  eight  shillings  a  day,  and 
the  comfort  in  ratio  to  the  charge.  In  the  finest 
hotel  in  Bombay  you  will  be  supplied  with  only 
one  knife,  fork,  and  spoon,  which  will  be  taken 
away  and  cleaned  after  every  course!  In  Calcutta 
there  are  a  great  number  of  boarding-houses,  but 
the  average  Englishman,  be  he  married  or  single, 
has  to  keep  up  his  own  house  and  establishment. 
With  bachelors,  "  chumming"  is  very  common, 
where  there  is  any  one  to  chum  with,  but,  taken 
on  the  whole,  life  is  solitary  and  ungregarious. 

Locomotion  is  rendered  comparatively  easy  by 
the  railways,  but  the  distances  that  have  to  be 
traversed  are  enormous.  I  remember  once  being 
a  week  in  trains  travelling  from  Calicut  to  Lahore, 
and  two  to  three  days  is  quite  an  ordinary  journey. 
For  shorter  distances,  every  one  who  can  manage 
it  travels  by  night.  No  European  travels  third- 


The  Land  of  Exile  187 

class,  and  as  many  as  can  first,  the  charge  for  which 
is  a  fraction  over  a  penny  a  mile.  There  are 
in  every  train  carriages  set  aside  for  ladies,  an 
arrangement  which  is  very  necessary  when  the 
railway  carriage  practically  becomes  a  place  of 
residence  for  two  or  three  days.  Every  carriage  is 
a  saloon  or  half-saloon,  with  a  bathroom  and  lava- 
tory attached,  and  the  seats  are  so  constructed  that 
the  backs  turn  up  and  form  couches  or  bunks.  It 
is  the  universal  practice  in  India  to  carry  your  bed- 
ding about  with  you;  in  fact,  no  one  ever  leaves 
home  for  a  single  night  without  his  proper  com- 
plement of  quilts,  sheets,  and  pillows,  so  that  the 
matter  of  bed-clothes  gives  no  trouble.  Male 
passengers  habitually  undress  and  tumble  into 
Pyjamas,  and  ladies  adopt  the  negligt  of  a  dress- 
ing-gown. Meals  are  provided  at  "Refreshment- 
room  stations  ' '  at  stated  intervals  on  the  line,  and, 
being  ordered  in  advance  by  the  guard,  are  always 
ready  when  the  train  draws  up;  the  charges  vary 
from  two  to  three  shillings  for  breakfast,  tiffin  (the 
Anglo-Indian  name  for  luncheon),  and  dinner. 
In  the  hot  weather,  the  guard  always  carries  ice 
and  soda-water  in  his  van,  and  these  can  be  pur- 
chased at  any  stopping  station  en  route.  A  din- 
ing-car is  unknown  in  India,  where,  judging  by 
the  length  of  stoppages  at  insignificant  stations, 
saving  time  is  of  little  consideration.  The  speed 
of  the  trains  varies  from  sixteen  to  twenty-five 
miles  an  hour,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  mail 
trains,  which  may  attain  thirty.  This  is  quite 


1 88  Indian  Life 

in  accord  with  the  sentiment  of  the  East,  where 
hurry  is  against  the  etiquette  of  native  good 
manners. 

A  great  deal  of  travelling  in  India  has  to  be  ac- 
complished by  horse  transit,  and  a  tonga,  which 
is  a  sort  of  two-horsed  dog-cart,  is  the  commonest 
vehicle  in  use,  and  ambles  along  at  the  rate  of  six 
miles  an  hour.  After  this  comes  the  ddk-gharrie, 
which  runs  on  four  wheels.  In  this  you  may 
bridge  over  the  seats,  spread  your  bedding  out, 
and  take  your  ease.  Failing  these  methods  of 
crossing  country  there  is  the  dhoolie-ddk,  or  pa- 
lanquin, which  still  survives  in  some  of  the  out- 
of-the-way  places.  Here  you  are  carried  in  a 
recumbent  position  in  a  closed-in  litter  on  the 
shoulders  of  four  men,  with  a  couple  to  relieve,  at 
a  stereotyped  pace  of  three  miles  an  hour,  and  in  a 
cloud  of  dust  churned  up  by  their  shuffling  feet. 
The  experienced  dhoolie-ddk  traveller  never  allows 
his  dhoolie  to  be  set  on  the  ground,  whereby  he 
avoids  exasperating  detentions  at  the  stages 
where  the  bearers  are  changed.  In  these  methods 
of  travelling  you  put  up  at  ddk- bungalows,  or 
Government  hostelries,  which  are  erected  all 
along  the  main  Indian  roads.  They  are  comfort- 
less places  as  a  rule,  in  charge  of  a  cook  who  gen- 
erally catches  and  kills  a  fowl  for  you  when  you 
arrive,  and  serves  it  up  within  twentj^  minutes. 
The  ddk-bungalow  is  one  of  the  trials  of  Anglo- 
Indian  life,  and  has  probably  had  more  jokes 
fathered  upon  it  than  English  seaside  lodging 


The  Land  of  Exile  189 

houses;  but  when  you  are  in  one,  the  joke  is  not 
appreciable. 

Such  are  the  means  by  which  the  Moffussil, 
"  up-country,"  or  provincial  Anglo-Indian  will 
reach  his  station  or  district,  and  unless  he  is  going 
to  Bombay  or  Calcutta,  which  are  practically  the 
two  entrance  doors  of  the  Empire,  with  Madras 
for  a  back  door,  his  first  experience  of  Anglo-In- 
dian life  will  be  of  travel;  and  the  land  journey 
will  often  prove  much  more  trying  than  the  sea- 
voyage.  India  is,  as  I  have  called  it,  a  Land  of 
Locomotion. 

Outside  the  principal  cities  and  towns  of  India, 
shopping  is  impossible.  This  does  not  refer  to 
household  shopping,  which  is  always  left  to  the 
servants,  for,  wherever  you  are,  it  is  beneath  your 
dignity  to  have  personal  transactions  with  your 
butcher,  baker,  grocer,  or  milkman.  But  Euro- 
pean luxuries,  which  include  wines  and  tinned 
provisions,  you  may  select  yourself  without  any 
loss  of  caste.  India  luxuriates  in  hermetically 
sealed  stores:  tinned  salmon  and  lobster,  tinned 
bacon  and  cheese,  tinned  soups  and  sausages, 
tinned  asparagus  and  fruit,  tinned  jam  and  potted 
meats — good  heavens!  what  is  there  that  is  not 
tinned  ?  These  are  the  dainties  of  Anglo-Indian 
daily  life,  the  delicacies  of  the  dinner-party.  ' '  I 
suppose,"  the  "  country-bred  "  belle  is  reported  to 
have  said,  "the  Queen  of  England  has  tinned  tid- 
bits at  every  meal!  "  They  correspond  with  the 
truffles  and  turtle-soup  of  English  banquets.  I 


1 90  Indian  Life 

remember  a  very  worthy  Scotchman  who  used  to 
allow  himself  a  tinned  Finnan  haddock  every  Sun- 
day for  breakfast;  he  said  it  was  an  extravagance, 
but  it  reminded  him  of  Scotland!  I  have  myself 
found  tinned  lobster  in  the  solitudes  of  the  Hima- 
layas reminiscent  of  the  Isle  of  Sark,  where  I 
spent  the  most  delightful  holiday  of  my  life. 
Taste  is  as  great  a  refresher  of  memory  as  smell. 

In  small  up-country  stations  there  are  generally 
one  or  two  "Europe  shops,"  kept  more  often  than 
not  by  Parsees,  where  one  can  purchase  the  most 
miscellaneous  assortment  of  articles,  ranging  from 
patent  medicines  and  Scotch  whisky  to  composite 
candles  and  Christmas  cards.  But  for  other 
tradesmen,  such  as  the  tailor,  bootmaker,  draper, 
and  barber,  you  send  for  them  to  attend  you. 
Your  tailor,  indeed,  you  often  keep  on  the  pre- 
mises, for  the  Indian  dcrzie,  or  knight  of  the 
needle,  squats  in  the  verandah,  and  can  adapt  his 
art  to  either  sex,  turning  out  hot-weather  suits  of 
white  drill,  or  tea-gowns,  or  summer  frocks  with  a 
sort  of  ambidexterity.  The  hat  is  another  affair; 
in  the  land  of  the  turban  you  will  do  well  not  to 
rely  on  the  vernacular  hatter.  It  is  well  to  obtain 
your  topee  from  a  reliable  source,  for  the  native- 
made  head-gear  of  the  Mqffussil,  a  monstrous 
' '  mushroom  ' '  made  out  of  pith  an  inch  in  thick- 
ness, is  the  sort  of  thing  to  provide  novelty  and 
amusement  in  a  pantomime.  Your  washerman 
is  your  private  property,  and  resides  on  the  pre- 
mises; if  you  are  a  bachelor,  you  pay  him  four  or 


The  Land  of  Exile 


five  shillings  a  month,  and  he  does  all  your  wash- 
ing; even  if  it  runs  to  seven  suits  of  white  drill 
clothes  and  fourteen  shirts  a  week  there  is  no 
extra  charge.  The  Anglo-Indian  changes  his 
linen  very  frequently,  and  when  he  returns  to 
England  the  first  thing  he  curses  is  the  laundry 
bill. 

Beyond  the  necessaries  of  life,  whatever  you 
want  you  must  send  for  by  post.  There  is  a  sys- 
tem in  India  called  the  "Value  Payable  Post,"  or 
briefly  "V.P.P.,"  by  which  the  value  of  the 
parcel  delivered  is  at  time  of  delivery  recovered 
from  the  purchaser,  who  must  pay  before  he  gets 
his  goods.  This  has  been  a  great  boon  to  the 
shopkeepers  of  the  country,  where,  until  its  in- 
stitution, credit  was  universal,  and  not  always 
immaculate.  All  petty  shopping  is  done  by 
V.P.P.  ;  it  is  the  recognised  arrangement,  and 
seldom  abused  except  where  the  unkind  cut  is 
practised  of  sending  an  old  unpaid  bill,  receipted, 
through  its  medium.  The  European  tradesmen 
of  the  cities  make  this  method  of  shopping  easy 
by  distributing  the  most  elaborate  illustrated  cat- 
alogues and  price-lists,  many  of  them  in  bulk 
equal  to  the  Field.  The  nuisance  of  circulars  is 
greater  in  Anglo-  India  than  in  England. 

One  of  the  luxuries  of  England  is  the  daily 
morning  paper  to  be  purchased  everywhere  and 
in  endless  variety.  Except  on  the  line  of  rail  in 
India,  you  cannot  buy  a  paper,  and  then  only  for 
fourpence  in  the  majority  of  cases,  though  a  penny 


i92  Indian  Life 

paper  exists  in  Calcutta.  The  Pioneer,  or  English- 
man, or  Times  of  India  is  always  received  by  post, 
and  imparts  a  peculiar  sense  of  welcome  to  the  man 
in  scarlet,  the  distinctive  uniform  of  the  Indian 
postman.  The  craving  for  home  news  is  very 
marked,  and  the  London  cablegrams  are  the  first 
things  glanced  at  or  inquired  about.  They  not  un- 
frequently  constitute  the  one  excitement  of  the  In- 
dian day.  After  them,  the  advertisement  columns 
attract  as  much  attention  as  any  other,  for  here 
you  shall  glean  much  personal  information  that  is 
vastly  interesting.  You  do  your  shopping  from 
them  as  a  matter  of  course,  but  more  edifying 
than  this  is  to  learn  who  is  selling-off  and  going 
home.  For  the  first  thing  an  Anglo-Indian  does 
who  premeditates  a  trip  to  England  is  to  advertise 
his  household  goods  in  the  Press.  If  you  want  to 
buy  a  piano,  horse,  dog,  tent,  dinner  service,  or 
anything  substantial  in  value,  your  first  course  is 
to  scan  the  advertisement  columns  of  your  paper, 
wherein  from  March  to  June,  the  season  when 
every  one  desires  to  leave  India,  you  can  rely  on 
a  plethora  of  bargains  offered  to  you;  but  prices 
go  up  from  October  to  December,  when  all  who 
are  on  leave,  and  can  fix  their  own  time,  return 
to  the  country,  and  are  "on  the  buy." 

The  Indian  daily  paper  is  far  more  to  the 
Anglo-Indian  than  you  would  suppose;  it  is  his 
living  link  with  England,  and  its  meagre  cable- 
grams— for  they  are  miserly  meagre — bring  de- 
light to  thousands  of  exiles.  That  feeling  of  being 


The  Land  of  Exile  193 

"  in  touch  with  home  "  cannot  be  understood  by 
any  one  who  has  not  left  it.  There  are  men 
parted  from  those  they  hold  most  dear  who  keep 
account  of  the  approximate  speed  of  the  various 
mail  steamers,  and  will  tell  you  at  a  moment's 
notice  whether  the  week's  mail  may  be  expected 
a  day  earlier  or  a  day  later  than  the  average,  or 
on  the  contract  date.  And  they  eagerly  trace  its 
course  from  Brindisi  to  Port  Said,  from  Port  Said 
to  Aden,  from  Aden  to  Bombay,  and  are  all  agog 
to  know  whether  a  special  train  has  been  put  on  to 
expediate  the  bags  to  their  part  of  India.  That 
is  where  the  sense  of  exile  comes  in, — the  looking 
and  longing  for  the  English  mail. 

Except  in  the  Hills,  which  are  elevated  sana- 
toriums  on  the  slopes  of  the  Himalayas  or  other 
mountain  ranges,  and  which  correspond  to  Eng- 
lish holiday  resorts,  there  is  not  much  walking 
done  in  India.  First  of  all  the  act  of  walking  is 
derogatory,  and  no  native  gentleman  ever  travels 
on  "Shanks'  mare."  When  a  viceroy  indulged 
in  a  walking  tour  in  the  Himalayas  the  natives 
were  scandalised.  Then,  again,  the  majority  of 
Europeans  keep  at  least  one  horse  and  trap.  You 
may  almost  call  it  a  necessity  for  the  European 
character.  In  the  commercial  centres  an  "  office 
carriage  "  is  often  kept  for  the  clerks  of  the  mer- 
cantile houses,  or  at  least  a  palanquin.  At  those 
times  when  the  English  would  consider  walking 
a  pastime  the  Anglo-Indian  rides  or  drives;  a 
gentle  stroll  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  is  the  limit 


194  Indian  Life 

of  his  exertions,  except  when  he  is  out  shooting. 
Of  course,  climate  has  a  good  deal  to  do  with  this 
lassitude,  not  to  say  laziness;  but  when  people 
can  afford  horse-flesh,  it  is  extraordinary  how  soon 
they  learn  to  become  "  carriage-folk,"  who  had 
never  kept  a  carriage  in  England  did  they  live 
there  for  a  century.  The  cost  of  keeping  a  horse 
is  comparatively  small,  though  each  horse  has  a 
groom  and  grass-cutter  attached  to  it;  you  may 
put  it  down  at  about  fifteen-pence  a  day,  and  the 
purchase  of  a  hack  at  twenty  pounds,  though  a 
"  country-bred  "  can  be  picked  up  much  cheaper. 
Drinking  is  far  more  prevalent  in  Anglo-India 
than  in  England.  Up-country,  to  omit  offering 
a  "peg,"  which  almost  invariably  assumes  the 
form  of  a  whisky  and  soda,  is  a  great  lapse  from 
propriety  and  decency.  But  the  Indian  "peg," 
albeit  copious,  is  fairly  innocuous,  a  small  modi- 
cum of  spirit  being  usually  drowned  in  a  pint  of 
aerated  water.  Many  men  fight  shy  of  beer  on 
account  of  liver;  light  wines  are  coming  more  into 
favour;  but  brandy,  once  the  typical  Anglo-Indian 
drink,  is  unknown.  Of  course,  the  thirst  is  ab- 
normal, and  a  long  drink  before  midday  probably 
the  custom.  But  by  eleven  o'clock,  when  the  sun 
is  supposed  to  come  over  the  fore-arm,  the  Anglo- 
Indian  has  been  up  for  five  or  six  hours,  and  for 
my  part  I  always  considered  that  the  middle  of 
the  working-day,  and  a  legitimate  hour  to  refresh. 
The  really  insidious  time  for  "  pegging  "  is  in  the 
cool  hours  of  the  evening  after  sunset,  and  before 


The  Land  of  Exile  195 

dinner,  when  people  meet  for  company  and  too 
often  for  conviviality.  But,  taking  him  for  all  in 
all,  the  Anglo-Indian  has  made  a  greater  stride 
towards  sobriety  in  the  last  thirty  years  than  Eng- 
land did  in  the  nineteenth  century,  whi  :h  is  say- 
ing a  good  deal.  Without  calling  him  temperate, 
I  should  decidedly  call  him  a  sufficiently  sober 
soul,  considering  the  aggravating  conditions  of 
thirst  under  which  he  lives. 

The  food  in  India,  whilst  far  inferior  in  the  raw 
material  to  that  of  England,  is  rendered  much 
more  tasty  by  the  excellence  of  the  cooking.  No 
one  ever  sits  down  to  a  dinner  of  less  than  four 
courses,  and  the  native  chef  IB  peculiarly  skilful  at 
entries,  or  "side  dishes,"  as  they  are  called.  The 
country  itself  provides  some  excellent  appetisers, 
and  pillaos,  ketcheries,  and  curries  will  tempt  the 
most  jaded  palate  when  English  cooking  would 
nauseate  it.  For  tiffin  in  the  hottest  weather 
there  is  nothing  like  currie.  Joints  are  at  a  dis- 
count in  a  country  where  all  the  meat  is  bad,  and 
people  who  turn  up  their  noses  at  Australian  mut- 
ton would  find  it  convenient  to  be  born  snub-nosed 
for  a  residence  in  the  East.  Chicken  is  the  stand- 
ard dish  of  India,  and  beef  the  least  consumed. 
Eggs  enter  very  largely  into  the  dietary,  but  they 
are  small,  scarce  bigger  than  bantams';  and,  in 
the  season,  game  can  be  shot  or  purchased  almost 
everywhere. 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  making  acquaintances 
in  India,  for  the  first  call  is  the  prerogative  of  the 


Indian  Life 


last  arrival.  Every  Anglo-Indian's  bungalow 
stands  in  its  own  garden,  and  at  the  gate  hangs 
suspended  a  board  with  his  name  painted  on  it. 
Each  station  is  a  directory  in  itself,  and  all  the 
new-comer  requires  is  a  sheaf  of  visiting-cards. 
Having  delivered  these  he  enters  society,  and 
his  subsequent  experience  depends  upon  himself. 
Hospitality,  though  behind  the  standard  of  the 
pre-Suez-  Canal  days,  is  still  a  shining  virtue  of 
the  Anglo-Indian,  and  a  stranger  who  is  able  to 
make  himself  agreeable  is  never  a  stranger  long. 
His  chief  difficulty  will  be  to  avoid  the  cliques  into 
which  society  in  the  East  habitually  falls;  this  is 
perhaps  a  natural  result  in  a  community  where 
every  one  knows  every  one,  and  a  splitting  up 
into  groups  of  affinities  is  the  corollary,  —  and  not 
only  knows  every  one  else,  but  his  income,  his 
prospects,  and  his  particular  social  status  in  a 
select  population  governed  by  the  strictest  laws  of 
precedence.  There  have  been  more  quarrels  over 
precedence  in  Anglo-  India  than  over  any  other 
cause;  it  is  regulated  by  a  table  edited  and  issued 
by  Government,  which  is,  in  effect,  the  charter  of 
Anglo-Indian  society.  Ladies  are  pedantically 
jealous,  and  woe  betide  the  unhappy  hostess  who 
makes  some  quite  unintentional  error  in  the  order 
in  which  she  sends  her  guests  in  to  dinner.  It 
often  leads  to  a  row  royal.  When  it  becomes  very 
acute,  some  one  pitches  the  Table  of  Precedence  at 
the  parties,  as  Moses  did  the  Tables  of  the  Law, 
and  that  settles  it. 


The  Land  of  Exile  197 

And  talking  of  Anglo-Indian  ladies,  their  po- 
sition in  the  East  is  not  what  it  was.  The  fatal 
Canal  supplied  them  in  such  legions  that  the  dif- 
ficulty of  the  modern  hostess  is  to  get  dancing 
men,  not  spinsters.  In  the  "  good  old  days,"  a 
ball  was  often  put  off  when  it  was  known  that  an 
unmarried  girl  or  two — "spins,"  as  they  are  called 
in  Anglo-Indian  phrase — were  ddking  up  to  the 
station,  consequent  on  the  arrival  of  a  ship  from 
England;  nowadays  it  is  deferred  until  a  polo 
match  of  gymkhana  (a  gathering  for  sports)  is 
due,  to  bring  the  men  into  headquarters.  When 
I  went  out  to  India  in  1871,  there  were  nine 
"  spins"  in  a  passenger-list  of  forty,  and  all  were 
married  within  the  year;  returning  in  1896  in  a 
P.  and  O.  mail  steamer,  there  were  more  blighted 
ambitions  on  board  than  I  counted.  The  modern 
Anglo-Indian  is  prone  to  marriage,  but  he  goes 
home  to  get  him  a  wife  in  the  majority  of  cases. 
And  if  there  is  one  thing  he  avoids,  it  is  the 
"  country-bred." 

"  Country"  is  a  peculiar  adjective  in  Anglo- 
Indianism  that  at  once  diminishes  the  value  of 
anything.  It  is  a  sneer  and  a  condemnation.  A 
"  country-bred  "  individual  is  at  once  stigmatised 
by  the  appellation.  "  Country-made"  goods  are 
a  synonym  for  inferiority.  On  the  other  hand, 
anything  "  English  "  or  "  imported  "  at  once  ac- 
quires a  special  value,  and  an  imported  dog,  iron 
bedstead,  carpet,  or  article  of  furniture  stamps  the 
owner  as  a  man  of  taste  and  means,  and  sheds 


198  Indian  Life 

dignity  over  him.  ' '  What  is  she  ?  "  a  man  asks, 
nodding  towards  a  pretty  brunette  in  a  ballroom. 
"Oh,  only  a  C.  B."  That  suffices.  But  you 
must  know  your  audience  in  using  the  initials. 
There  is  a  story  told  of  a  gentleman  who  was  ex- 
tolling the  merits  of  a  certain  handsome  young 
official,  already  a  Companion  of  the  Bath,  to  a 
lady  of  the  country,  and  observed  he  was  a  "C.  B." 
"  What  is  that  ?  "  she  inquired,  half  daring,  half 
doubting,  for  she  could  not  believe  the  individual 
in  question  was  not ' '  imported. "  "A  Companion 
of  the  Bath,"  came  the  explanation.  "  Oh,  you 
must  not  speak  to  me  like  that!  "  was  the  protest 
of  the  coy  creature. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ANGIXD-INDIAN  CASTES 

YOU  can  divide  Anglo-Indian  society  into 
castes  as  precisely  as  you  can  the  Hindus. 
The  Civil  Service,  or  administrative  class,  repre- 
sents the  Brahmins,  with  their  privileges,  their 
power,  and  their  precedence  of  all  others.  In  the 
military,  you  have  an  exact  counterpart  of  the 
warrior  caste,  and,  in  its  relation  to  the  Brahmins, 
identical.  The  mercantile  element  represents  the 
trading  castes,  and  the  ' '  British  workman ' '  on 
railways  and  in  mills,  shops,  and  offices  is  a 
Vaishya,  or  of  the  labouring  caste;  whilst  to  com- 
plete the  parallel,  the  Eurasian,  or  half-caste,  is 
the  pariah  of  Anglo-Indian  society.  Uncon- 
sciously, but  exactly,  these  groups  represent 
those  in  the  Hindu  scale  in  their  opinions  of 
themselves  and  their  relations  to  one  another. 

The  English  Brahmins  are  divided  into  as  many 
sections  as  their  native  prototypes.  First  comes 
the  "  I.C.S.-H/tf//a/j,"  or  Indian  Covenanted 
Civilian,  who  is  the  salt  of  the  earth,  a  Benares 
Brahmin,  so  to  speak,  with  the  umbrella  of  im- 
portance always  over  him.  There  are  about  a 
199 


200  Indian  Life 

thousand  civilians  entitled  to  put  those  magic  in- 
itials, which  stand  for  "Indian  Civil  Service," 
after  their  names;  all  the  other  civilians  are  "  Un- 
covenanted  Civilians,"  which  is  quite  another 
pair  of  shoes.  But,  be  they  covenanted  or  uncov- 
enanted,  they  monopolise  all  the  best-buttered 
pieces  of  bread  in  the  Indian  Empire. 

The  Indian  Civil  Service  is  the  highest  paid  of 
any  in  the  world,  and  offers  more  plums  of  ap- 
pointment, with  a  salary  always  munificent,  a 
pension  of  a  thousand  a  year  after  twenty-one 
years'  service,  and,  in  the  event  of  death,  four 
hundred  a  year  to  the  widow  and  a  hundred  and 
fifty  to  each  of  his  daughters.  From  the  ranks  of 
this  privileged  class,  a  man  may  rise  to  be  the 
Lieutenant  of  a  Province  as  large  as  the  United 
Kingdom,  to  several  lesser  spheres  of  ruling 
power  and  dignity,  may  become  a  State  Secretary, 
a  member  of  Council,  or  adorn  several  other  posts, 
the  emoluments  of  which  vary  from  three  to  seven 
thousand  pounds  a  year.  And  throughout  his 
career,  he  is  always  favoured  of  what  Mr.  Kipling 
has  called  the  "little  tin  gods,"  and  carries  his 
chin  at  a  higher  cock  than  any  one  else  in  Anglo- 
India. 

The  Covenanted  Civilian  has  his  weaknesses; 
for  instance,  he  always  inscribes  the  initials  I.C.S. 
on  his  visiting-cards  after  his  name,  and  on  the 
board  at  the  gate  of  his  garden.  This  is  to  inform 
the  world  that  he  belongs  to  that  higher  Brahmin- 
ism  which  looks  coldly  down  on  the  rest.  He  is 


Anglo-Indian  Castes          201 

the  aristocrat  of  a  community  which  does  not 
number  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
Britons,  and  represents  the  exclusiveness  of  the 
upper  ten  thousand  in  England.  He  is  charged 
by  his  less  fortunate  fellow-creatures  with  being 
conceited  and  purse-proud;  but  this  is  probably 
due  LO  jealousy  in  most  instances.  There  is  a 
covenanted  civilian  at  the  head  of  every  district  in 
India,  who  is  a  little  king  in  his  way,  and  rules 
society.  He  is  expected  to  entertain  and  lead  the 
fashion,  and  much  depends  upon  the  character  of 
the  individual  and  his  wife.  The  service  is  re- 
cruited by  competitive  examination  open  to  all, 
and  brains,  or  to  speak  more  correctly,  cramming, 
wins  its  way  to  the  front.  Gentle  birth  is  no 
longer  an  essential  for  employ  in  the  service  of 
the  Indian  Government,  and  you  may,  and  some- 
times do,  find  a  tradesman's  son  in  the  ranks  of 
the  select  service.  In  the  old  days  of  John  Com- 
pany, when  appointments  were  given  to  nominees 
of  the  directors,  the  latter  were  sponsors  for  the 
social  status  of  their  candidate;  but  that  is  all 
changed  under  the  present  system,  and  perhaps 
not  for  the  better. 

Notwithstanding,  and  taking  it  all  round,  the 
administrators  of  the  Indian  Civil  Service  are 
probably  as  good  as  any  in  the  Empire,  and  the 
foibles  they  display  are  no  greater  than  you  will 
find  in  England  amongst  members  of  Parliament 
and  civic  magnates.  The  civilian  moults  his 
feathers  when  he  gets  west  of  the  Suez  Canal,  and 


202  Indian  Life 

sometimes  becomes  a  very  sparrow.  I  have  sel- 
dom experienced  such  a  shock  as  that  of  meeting 
on  the  top  of  a  penny  'bus  a  "  Commissioner," 
who  had  been  the  virtual  ruler  of  four  of  the 
largest  districts  in  Upper  India,  and  who,  when  I 
had  last  seen  him,  was  driving  in  a  feudatory 
rajah's  carriage,  escorted  by  sowars^  and  through 
a  city  the  population  of  which  was  in  a  state  of 
ground-level  prostration.  ' '  Look  on  this  picture 
and  on  that,"  was  my  mental  reflection,  as  I  re- 
membered the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  his 
4 '  receptions ' '  in  the  East,  when  he  never  conde- 
scended to  advance  from  a  particular  square  of 
the  carpet  to  greet  his  guests.  But  I  cannot 
candidly  say  he  was  typical  of  any  but  a  small 
class  amongst  his  fellows  who  carry  the  rights  of 
the  divinity  that  doth  hedge  them  to  an  absurd 
excess  at  times. 

The  lesser  civilians  in  India, — the  engineer,  the 
doctor,  the  superintendent  of  police,  and  so  forth 
— have  each  a  dignity  above  the  common,  which 
is  conferred  by  being  in  service  under  Govern- 
ment. This  is,  perhaps,  natural  in  a  country 
where  nearly  all  the  members  of  society,  outside 
a  few  large  cities,  are  in  "  the  service,"  and  their 
status  laid  down  in  those  Tables  of  Precedence  I 
have  quoted,  which  take  no  account  whatever  of 
the  non-official.  How  should  it,  since  they  are 
not  concerned  with  him  ?  But  for  him  the  fact  re- 
mains, that  in  going  to  India  to  fulfil  his  destiny, 
and  help  to  develop  the  land,  he  surrenders  all 


Anglo-Indian  Castes          203 

claims  to  his  own  proper  social  rank  in  a  bureau- 
cracy that  has  no  admittance  for  ' '  outsiders. ' ' 

The  military  caste  comes  next  in  the  Anglo- 
Indian  social  scale,  a  position  it  does  not  alto- 
gether appreciate.  Between  civilians  and  military 
there  has  been  an  antipathy  from  the  beginning, 
is  now,  and  ever  will  continue  to  be.  Even  in 
India  the  soldier  is  a  poor  man,  and  few  of  the 
loaves  and  fishes  fall  to  his  share.  It  is  difficult 
for  him  on  his  ' '  hundreds  ' '  to  compete  with  the 
civilian,  whose  income  is  reckoned  by  thousands, 
and  the  return  of  hospitality  is  a  heavy  tax  on 
him.  If  it  were  not  for  the  military  mess  system, 
the  problem  would  be  harder,  for  Anglo-Indian 
society  is  prodigal  of  entertainment.  As  it  is, 
mess  entertainments  are  proverbially  the  best  of 
all,  and  there  is  no  place  for  enjoying  life  so  gaily 
and  brightly  as  a  military  cantonment  in  the  cold 
weather.  And  where  you  find  the  soldier  there 
is  the  best  polo,  the  best  cricket,  the  best  racing, 
the  best  gymkhanas,  the  best  of  every  form  of 
sport  and  pastime.  Moreover,  there  is  an  absence 
of  stiffness  in  military  entertainments  that  con- 
trasts pleasantly  with  the  more  elaborate  profusion 
but  rather  ' '  slow  ' '  hospitality  of  the  civilian. 

As  I  have  said,  there  is  no  love  lost,  as  classes, 
between  the  civil  and  military  folk.  They  are 
different  castes,  and  they  keep  to  their  own  as 
distinctly  as  do  the  Brahmins  and  rajpoots.  Be- 
tween the  individual  members  there  is  often  a 
keen  jealousy.  The  precedence  nearly  always 


204  Indian  Life 

belongs  to  the  civilian,  who,  if  he  is  head  of  the 
district,  is  the  senior  of  the  officer  commanding. 
Not  unfrequently  tiffs  occur  amongst  the  exalted, 
and  then  society  at  once  divides  itself,  and  you 
have  your  civil  and  your  military  cliques,  which 
are  as  oil  and  vinegar.  Perhaps,  on  the  whole, 
the  soldier  has  the  best  of  it,  because  his  society 
is  larger,  and  leaves  him  more  independent,  whilst 
the  civilian  has  only  half  a  dozen  of  his  caste  to 
gather  round  him. 

There  is  a  queer  compound  to  be  found  in  some 
of  the  provinces  of  India,  known  as  the  military 
civilian.  He  is  a  soldier  in  what  is  called  ' '  civil 
employ,"  and  whilst  retaining  his  military  rank, 
is  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  except  pay,  and 
the  privilege  of  the  initials,  an  Indian  civilian. 
There  are  military  revenue  officers,  military  magis- 
trates, and  even  military  judges,  whose  functions 
are  purely  peaceful.  I  have  seen  a  district  judge, 
who  held  the  rank  of  a  major  in  the  army,  trying 
a  case  with  a  cheroot  in  his  mouth,  and  giving 
ear  to  the  subtlest  arguments  of  counsel;  and  a 
colonel  addressing  himself  to  the  task  of  collecting 
revenue  with  notLing  more  threatening  than  a 
pen  in  his  hand.  One  I  remember  whose  boast  it 
was  that  he  had  not  put  on  a  uniform  for  twenty 
years.  The  military  civilian  inclines  to  the  man- 
ners and  customs  of  the  Brahmin  rather  than  to 
those  of  the  warrior  caste,  and  in  his  habitual 
mufti  seems  to  have  sloughed  off  the  military 
habit,  and  become  a  man  of  peace  and  plenty. 


Anglo-Indian  Castes         205 

Descending  from  the  Brahmin  and  warrior 
castes  in  Anglo-Indian  society,  it  is  a  consider- 
able step  down  to  the  trading  caste.  Into  this 
classification  fall  merchants,  planters,  mission- 
aries, manufacturers,  barristers,  and  all  those  call- 
ings where  the  labour  is  not  with  the  hands,  but 
excluding  shopkeepers,  who  are  a  caste  to  them- 
selves. The  custom  of  the  East  places  these 
non-officials  in  the  nondescript  position  of  having 
no  recognised  social  status  by  law  prescribed. 
India  is  a  land  despotically  governed,  and  the 
laws  that  govern  its  society  are  equally  despotic. 
Nothing  can  be  more  humiliating  than  the  status 
of  the  isolated  non-official  in  an  up-country 
station,  where  all  the  European  community  is 
composed  of  civilians  or  military  officers.  In  the 
large  mercantile  centres,  like  Calcutta  and  Bom- 
bay, the  non-official  has  his  own  society,  and 
keeps  to  it;  so,  also,  in  the  planting  centres.  But 
between  these  classes  and  the  official  ones  there  is 
decidedly  a  gulf  fixed,  and  the  civilian  especially 
looks  down  on  the  trader  who,  for  his  part,  eyes 
the  official  with  something  akin  to  amused  con- 
tempt when  exposed  to  his  superciliousness. 

But  where  the  non-official  is  otherwise  situated, 
he  is  very  helpless.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
public  opinion  in  India  outside  the  metropolitan 
cities,  and  the  non-official  has  no  voice  in  any 
matter.  The  Press  of  India  does  not  represent 
public  opinion,  but  the  views  of  Government;  its 
chief  subscribers  are  Government  officials,  and  it 


206  Indian  Life 

is  dependent  on  the  powers  that  be  for  news,  not 
to  mention  fat  contracts  for  advertising  and  print- 
ing. The  non-official  is  without  a  vote,  without 
representation,  without  privileges,  and  without 
rights,  even  though  he  be  a  free-born  Englishman. 
He  sacrifices  all  those  when  he  enters  on  an  East- 
ern career.  In  out-of-the-way  places,  he  feels  al- 
most as  if  he  were  living  on  sufferance,  and  a 
man  may  be  employing  hundreds  of  labourers  in 
a  mill,  or  opening  up  thousands  of  acres  of  land 
that  was  waste,  or  introducing  an  industry  that 
brings  plenty  to  an  impoverished  district,  and  yet 
find  himself  considered  socially  of  less  account 
than  the  last  young  prig  of  an  official  out  from 
Colvjuie  Gardens. 

This  social  status  is  a  little  hard  on  the  men 
who  are  the  backbone  of  the  prosperity  of  the 
country.  The  merchant,  the  manufacturer,  and 
the  planter  are  the  people  who  have  developed 
India,  and  brought  Anglo-Saxon  energy,  not  to 
mention  capital,  to  work  on  its  resources.  The 
official  may  collect  the  revenue,  but  without  the 
non-official,  it  would  not  have  been  one  half  of 
what  it  is  at  the  present  day.  Moreover,  there  is 
a  great  jealousy  of  the  non-official  when  he  suc- 
ceeds, and  especially  of  that  independence  which 
the  members  of  a  bureaucratical  form  of  govern- 
ment dare  not  display. 

But  harder  than  the  lot  of  the  English  non- 
official  gentleman  in  India  is  that  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Sudra,  as  I  may  call  the  working-man. 


Anglo-Indian  Castes         207 

He  is  an  individual  who  labours  with  his  hands  in 
a  country  where  all  manual  labour  is  far  more  de- 
rogatory than  in  England.  You  may  say  that  no 
one  need  be  ashamed  of  honest  work,  but  where 
the  white  skin  carries  a  racial  superiority  with  it, 
the  spectacle  of  one  of  the  ruling  race  toiling  with 
his  hands  before  the  natives  is  not  edifying.  It  is 
necessary,  but  it  is  anomalous.  When  one  boards 
the  homeward-bound  steamer  there  is  always  a 
sense  of  the  unfit  in  being  waited  upon  by  the 
English  stewards.  This  is  work  you  are  accus- 
tomed to  associate  with  native  menials  only,  and 
it  takes  you  some  time  to  pick  up  again  those 
little  amenities  in  accepting  service  which  you 
have  never  vouchsafed  your  bearer  or  kitmudghar. 
Tommy  Atkins  is  redeemed  by  his  uniform, 
which  carries  honour  and  Sclat  with  it,  but  the 
grimy  ganger  on  the  railway,  the  European  con- 
stable in  the  larger  cities,  and,  worst  of  all,  the 
English  coachman  employed  by  some  of  the 
wealthier  natives,  and  the  ladies' -maids  whom 
certain  ladies  think  it  fashionable  to  keep,  jar 
mightily  against  sentiment  in  a  land  where  all 
manual  and  menial  service  is  done  by  natives. 
At  the  same  time,  I  am  bound  to  admit  that  the 
British  working-man  is  well  able  to  "keep  his  end 
up,"  and  even  though  he  be  a  "  poor  white  "  in  a 
population  where  most  whites  are  tolerably  well  off, 
he  asserts  the  birthright  of  his  white  skin  not  with- 
out energy.  But  I  must  say  for  my  own  part  that, 
for  choice,  I  should  prefer  the  equal  conditions 


208  Indian  Life 

of  England  at  a  lower  wage  to  the  social  surrender 
every  one  must  yield  who  takes  pick  and  shovel 
in  hand  in  the  East.  You  cannot  get  away  from 
caste  in  India,  and  that  is  against  caste. 

The  pariah,  or  outcaste  of  Anglo-Indian  society 
is  found  in  the  Eurasian,  descended  from  a  white 
father  and  a  native  mother,  and  the  intermarriage 
of  their  offspring.  There  are  as  many  Eurasians 
in  India  as  there  are  pure  whites,  and  they  carry 
all  shades  of  complexion,  from  one  so  fair  that  you 
cannot  distinguish  it  from  a  European's  to  shades 
considerably  darker  than  many  of  the  native  races. 

In  America,  a  half-caste  who  has  less  than  half 
white  blood  in  his  veins  is  described  as  a  quadroon 
or  octoroon;  the  Anglo-Indian  system  is  even 
more  definite.  The  assessment  follows  the  coin- 
age. Thus  the  phrase  "  He  is  eight,  six,  four,  or 
two  annas  in  the  rupee ' '  (as  the  case  may  be)  de- 
scribes the  Eurasian  with  analytical  accuracy. 
"Eight  annas,"  or  half  a  rupee,  designates  the 
actual  half  caste;  "four  annas"  those  of  one 
white  and  one  half-caste  parent,  and  six  and  two 
annas  the  intermediate  degrees.  It  is  all  calcu- 
lated to  a  nicety  by  this  mathematical  method. 
The  prejudice  against  black  blood  is  insuperable, 
and  the  merest  ' '  touch  of  the  tar-brush ' '  is  suf- 
ficient to  create  a  stigma.  The  Eurasian  speaks 
with  a  peculiar  accent,  called  cki-chi,  which  is  con- 
sidered very  objectionable;  he  makes  his  final 
"y's"  into  "  e's,"  and  is  in  difficulty  with  his 
"  th's."  For  instance,  he  would  render  "D'Arcy 


Anglo-Indian  Castes         209 

Macarthy  come  to  the  city,"  "  Darcee  Macartee 
com  to  dee  citee."  The  Anglo-Indian  ear  is  very 
sharp  to  recognise  chi-chi  bdt. 

The  Eurasian  occupies  an  unenviable  position. 
He  is  too  proud  to  mix  with  the  natives,  who 
will,  indeed,  have  none  of  him,  and  the  European 
shuns  him.  He  is  a  sort  of  social  neutral  stratum, 
regarded  as  foreign  and  looked  upon  with  suspicion 
by  the  brown  race,  and  looked  down  on  with  con- 
tempt by  the  white.  Popularly  supposed  to  inherit 
all  the  vices  and  none  of  the  virtues  of  his  parents, 
there  is  little  ever  said  in  his  favour.  I  fear  you 
cannot  call  the  Eurasian  trustworthy  or  truthful 
as  a  class,  though  of  course  there  are  many  hon- 
ourable exceptions.  Certain  it  is  he  seldom  rises 
to  high  employ,  and  is  chiefly  engaged  in  clerkly 
duties,  for  he  has  an  unconquerable  aversion  to 
physical  work  or  energy  of  any  sort.  The  Eura- 
sian society  is  one  apart  and  unique,  and  its  eti- 
quette and  manners  are  often  a  fine  burlesque  on 
those  of  the  white  race,  with  which  its  members 
are  proud  to  claim  connection.  Their  womenfolk 
affect  gaudy  colours,  and  a  Eurasian  ball  will  dis- 
play as  many  rainbow  tints  as  a  mulatto  one. 
Some  of  the  Eurasian  girls  are  very  beautiful 
when  young,  and  not  a  few  Europeans  have  suc- 
cumbed to  their  charms,  and  married  them;  but 
such  alliances  are  regarded  with  extreme  disfavour 
when  they  occur  among  the  higher  grades  of 
official  life.  As  for  the  lower-class  Eurasian 
men,  it  would  be  difficult  to  tell  them  from  natives 


210  Indian  Life 

except  for  their  European  costume,  and  the  fact 
that  they  do  not  shave  their  heads  and  do  part 
their  hair.  The  Portuguese  have  left  behind  a 
monument  of  their  Indian  dominion  in  a  very 
numerous  race  of  half-breeds,  who  hail  from  Goa. 
They  enter  largely  into  domestic  service,  and  in 
Bombay  all  the  best  cooks  and  waiters  are  of 
Portuguese  extraction.  Nor  will  you  find,  in  the 
whole  of  India,  any  better  servants  than  these, 
with  their  white  Eton  jacket,  collar  and  shirt,  and 
bare  feet.  In  this  latter  point  they  have  adopted 
the  custom  of  the  natives  without  discarding  that 
of  the  European,  and  the  Goa  boy  comes  into 
your  presence  without  hat  or  shoes. 

Of  all  the  minor  problems  in  India,  "What 
shall  we  do  with  the  Eurasians?  "  is  perhaps  the 
most  difficult.  They  have  just  cause  for  com- 
plaint in  the  treatment  they  receive  from  the 
European,  whose  attitude  towards  them  is  similar 
to  that  of  the  native  towards  the  outcaste.  And 
yet  the  European  race  is  responsible  for  these  de- 
spised folk,  and  they  cling  to  their  connection 
with  the  ruling  class  with  a  pride  and  persistency 
that  is  almost  pathetic. 

I  have  not  mentioned  the  "loafer,"  which  is 
the  Anglo-Indian  word  for  the  European  beggar. 
He  exists.  Volubility  is  his  forte,  and  he  is  al- 
ways en  route  to  a  distant  district  to  take  up  an 
appointment.  He  generally  keeps  to  the  cities, 
but  sometimes  he  "  tours  the  provinces."  He  is 
a  creditor  on  your  bounty,  and  I  do  not  know  any 


Anglo-Indian  Castes          211 

man  more  difficult  to  get  rid  of.  It  is  a  sorry 
spectacle  to  see  him  tramping  the  highway,  but 
he  is  a  dangerous  individual  to  give  money  to,  for 
it  is  nearly  always  sure  to  go  at  the  next  native 
dram-shop.  In  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hun- 
dred, drink  has  brought  him  to  his  miserable  con- 
dition. And  yet  he  belongs  to  the  ruling  race, 
and  as  he  tramps  the  road  you  will  find  every 
native  giving  him  the  right  of  it! 

For  it  is  the  custom  of  the  country  for  the  black 
to  bow  before  the  white,  and  this  continual  sur- 
render has  its  effect  upon  the  dominant  race.  It 
is  not  a  wholesome  atmosphere  for  it.  The  aris- 
tocracy of  colour  has  its  evils;  it  engenders  a  false 
pride,  a  sense  of  superiority,  an  inflatedness  of 
self,  which  is,  perhaps,  the  weakest  point  in  the 
Anglo-Indian's  character.  It  does  the  average 
Anglo-Indian  good  to  go  to  a  colony,  and  live  in 
a  state  of  equality  for  a  time;  for  he  gets  a  little 
too  overbearing  in  India,  surrounded  as  he  is  by 
servility  and  constant  fawning.  The  black  back- 
ground brings  the  white  skin  into  extreme  relief; 
the  effect  is  too  dazzling — on  the  white.  Nothing 
does  him  more  good  than  to  go  home  to  England, 
and  be  kept  waiting  by  the  young  lady  attendant 
at  a  post-office  for  a  penny  stamp,  while  she  fin- 
ishes her  flirtation  with  the  Sudra — or,  as  I  should 
say,  the  shop  assistant  from  next  Coor! 


CHAPTER  XV 

BUNGALOW 


THE  Anglo-Indian's  bungalow  is  as  different 
from  an  English  house  in  its  external  ap- 
pearance and  internal  arrangement  as  is  a  temple 
from  a  church.  It  is  always  a  detached  building 
standing  in  ground  of  its  own,  which  is  called  the 
"compound,"  single-  storied,  rambling,  and  flat- 
roofed.  The  doors  are  ill-fitting  and  clumsy,  the 
windows  small  and  often  not  made  to  be  opened, 
and  a  "  sash  "  window  is  unknown.  The  walls 
are  whitewashed  or  distempered,  and  the  floors  are 
of  cement.  Every  room  has  direct  access  to  a 
verandah,  and  all  enter  one  into  another,  for  there 
are  no  passages.  Each  bedroom  has  its  own  bath 
and  retiring  room,  there  being  no  drains  in  India. 
A  room  with  a  single  door  in  it  is  unknown;  all 
have  two,  and  many  three,  four,  and  even  six, 
and  those  leading  into  the  verandahs  are  generally 
glazed,  which  saves  windows.  Very  few  bunga- 
lows have  halls,  the  verandah  in  the  front  of  the 
house  doing  duty  for  such.  Cellarage  does  not 
exist,  and  naturally  there  are  no  fireplaces,  save 
in  those  districts  in  the  north  of  India  where  the 

212 


Bungalow  Life  213 

nights  are  chilly  in  the  "  cold  weather,"  which  is 
the  Indian  name  for  winter.  Except  in  the  capi- 
tal cities,  water  and  gas  are  conspicuous  by  their 
absence,  and  you  may  call  at  every  house  between 
Cape  Comorin  and  Cashmere  without  finding  a 
bell  to  pull. 

The  kitchen  is  a  detached  building  erected  as 
far  away  as  possible  from  the  bungalow.  The 
only  connection  with  your  commissariat  allowed 
in  the  dwelling  is  the  storeroom,  invariably 
known  in  India  as  the  ' '  godown' '  ;  and  the  sole 
domestic  duty  of  the  diligent  Anglo-Indian  house- 
wife is  to  "  do  her  godown  "  every  morning.  The 
cook  comes  with  an  assortment  of  plates  and  pots, 
makes  his  suggestions  for  the  menus  of  the  day's 
meals,  and  proceeds  to  help  himself  to  the  exact 
amount  of  ingredients  necessary  for  them.  This 
is  a  check  upon  pilfering,  for  all  Indian  servants 
feed  themselves,  and  at  your  expense  if  they  can. 
Meat  in  its  uncooked  state  is  never  kept  in  the 
house,  and  only  brought  there  for  casual  inspec- 
tion; and  on  the  fowl  that  enters  so  largely  into 
Anglo-Indian  dietary  you  cast  a  discriminating 
eye  as  it  is  being  chevied  round  the  compound 
preliminary  to  slaughter.  In  the  kitchen,  the 
cooking  arrangements  are  primitive.  The 
' '  range ' '  consists  of  half  a  dozen  small  open  fire- 
places, each  about  eight  inches  square,  grouped 
in  a  nest  on  the  floor,  or  on  raised  masonry,  and 
the  fuel  is  wood  or  charcoal.  Natives  are  so  ac- 
customed to  the  floor  that  they  prefer  to  work  on 


214  Indian  Life 

it;  and  a  cook  stirring  a  saucepan,  is  much  more 
comfortable  squatting  on  his  haunches,  than  in  a 
more  elevated  position. 

The  servants'  ' '  lines  ' '  are  a  row  of  huts,  often 
mere  hovels,  adjoining  the  stables,  and  in  the 
most  distant  corner  of  the  compound.  Each  ser- 
vant has  one  room,  wherein  dwell  himself,  wife, 
and  family.  If  he  is  a  Mahomedan  he  will  not 
unfrequently  enclose  a  small  patch  in  front  of  his 
compartment  with  an  erection  of  bamboo  matting 
to  form  a  screen,  and  thus  secure  the  privacy  of 
his  hareem.  The  servants  form  a  small  colony  in 
the  compound,  and  a  very  moderate  householder 
may  find  he  is  in  practice  the  supi  orter  of  twenty 
human  beings. 

Very  few  ladies  ever  enter  their  kitchens.  In 
the  words  of  the  poet,  "  '  t  is  better  not, ' '  for  where 
ignorance  is  bliss,  why  set  yourself  against  your 
food  ?  But  once  a  month,  the  prudent  housewife 
inspects  her  cooking-pots,  the  reason  being  that 
they  are  always  made  of  copper,  and  have  to  be 
periodically  tinned,  or  they  become  poisonous. 
Many  lives  have  been  lost  in  India  by  the  neglect 
of  this  precaution,  and  any  sudden  and  inexplic- 
able indisposition  always  elicits  the  question, 
"  When  were  the  dekjies  last  tinned  ?  " 

A  bachelor's  bungalow  is  not  unfrequently  a 
barn  in  appearance,  for,  with  the  constant  shifting 
of  residence,  furnishing  is  reduced  to  a  minimum. 
His  goods  and  chattels  are  hired,  and  of  the  most 
primitive  description.  Anything  uglier  and  more 


Bungalow  Life  215 

cumbersome  than  the  Anglo-Indian's  furniture  it 
would  be  hard  to  find.  All  the  chairs  are  cane- 
bottomed,  heavy,  and  with  arms,  and  the  only 
comfortable  ones  are  those  for  lounging  in  on  the 
verandah,  which  have  extending  arms  on  which 
to  elevate  your  legs.  The  tables  are  solid  and 
ugly,  generally  a  huge  round  one  in  the  centre  of 
the  room  aud  several  small  ones  called  ' '  tea- 
poys," set  indiscriminately  about.  A  mat  on  the 
floor  may  or  may  not  be  relieved  with  a  few  rugs; 
but  often  the  plaster  is  in  bad  repair,  and  crum- 
bles under  the  foot.  There  are  no  blinds,  and  the 
curtains  are  purely  practical,  and  not  ornamental. 
If  possible,  the  bedroom  furniture  is  a  cut  more  sim- 
ple than  that  in  the  dwelling-rooms.  A  bed  made 
of  broad  tape  woven  across  a  wooden  framework 
is  the  usual  couch  for  reposing  on;  a  chest  of 
drawers  is  a  luxury,  its  place  being  more  often 
taken  by  an  almirah,  or  cupboard,  with  shelves  in 
it.  Looking-glasses  have  a  way  of  distorting  the 
visage  which  is  useful  in  putting  people  out  of 
conceit  with  themselves,  but  leads  to  bloodshed  in 
shaving,  unless,  as  is  often  the  case,  you  turn 
your  cheek  to  the  barber,  who  gladly  calls  every 
morning.  The  toilette  table  is  never  draped,  and 
the  whole  scheme  of  comfort  is  crude.  All  ablu- 
tions are  performed  in  the  bath-room,  wherein  a 
huge  tub  or  zinc  bath,  and  several  clay  gurrahs 
or  earthen  pipkins  filled  with  water  are  the  promi- 
nent features.  Every  one  in  India  bathes  once  a 
day,  and  in  the  hotter  districts  often  twice  or 


216  Indian  Life 

thrice,  with  a  night-bath  thrown  in.  The  bed- 
ding nearly  always  shows  sign  of  travel,  and  has 
not  that  neat  inviting  appearance  associated 
with  the  white  counterpaned  cot  in  England. 

Notwithstanding  the  bare  and  desolate  nature 
of  the  bachelor's  abode,  the  Anglo-Indian  lady 
generally  manages  to  make  the  drawing-room  in 
her  bungalow  pretty  and  artistic.  There  is  great 
emulation  in  its  decoration,  and  it  surprises  one 
to  see  what  marvels  of  transformation  can  be 
effected  by  feminine  taste  and  ingenuity.  The 
first  thing  to  catch  the  eye  is  the  array  of  photo- 
graphs displayed ;  it  is  the  link  with  home.  Then 
the  tall  ugly  walls  are  hidden  from  sight  with 
curtains,  screens,  fans,  ornaments,  and  phulkar- 
ries.  The  floor  is  carpeted  with  a  dhurrie,  and 
the  disposal  of  the  furniture  reflects  resource  if  it 
sometimes  leaves  little  space;  whilst  the  piano  at 
once  brings  you  face  to  face  with  Western  civilisa- 
tion. It  is  generally  iron-framed,  and  constructed 
to  withstand  the  climate,  before  the  scorching 
heat  of  which  an  English  instrument  acquires  a 
habit  of  collapsing.  The  room  is  always  dark, 
partly  because  there  are  no  windows,  but  also  for 
the  sake  of  coolness,  or  imaginary  coolness,  the 
subdued  light  lending  itself  to  that  state  of  self- 
deception.  All  light  has  to  filter  into  the  rooms 
through  the  verandahs,  and  these  are  protected 
with  ' '  chicks, ' '  which  are  screens  made  of  loosely 
woven  slips  of  bamboo.  They  stretch  from  pillar 
to  pillar,  and  in  practice  make  rooms  out  of  the 


Bungalow  Life  217 

verandahs.  The  doors  are  also  guarded  by  similar 
contrivances  to  keep  out  flies.  The  trouble  of 
drawing  aside  the  chick  on  entering  or  leaving  a 
room  is  one  of  the  petty  irritations  of  Indian  life. 

In  her  drawing-room,  for  the  chief  portion  of 
the  day,  the  Anglo- Indian  lady  is  as  much  a  pris- 
oner by  reason  of  the  heat  as  the  zenana  woman 
is  from  custom.  There  is  no  shopping,  and  only 
the  minimum  of  domestic  duties  to  occupy  her. 
She  is  by  herself  all  day  long,  and  thrown  on  her 
own  resources  of  music,  reading,  letter- writing,  or 
sketching.  "  The  long,  long,  weary  day  "  of  the 
German  song  has  been  well  parodied  in  one  that 
bewails  the  "  long,  long,  Indian  day."  The  only 
break  is  when  an  afternoon  caller  drops  in;  but 
callers  are  few  in  an  up-country  station.  And, 
besides,  every  one  meets  every  one  else  at  the  uni- 
versal gathering-place  in  the  evening,  which  is 
probably  the  public  gardens,  "the  Company's 
Garden,"  as  it  is  still  sometimes  called  in  old-time 
association  with  the  East  India  Company. 

An  afternoon  nap  is  almost  universal,  if  the  flies 
will  allow  it.  Flies  by  day  and  mosquitos  by 
night  are  distinct  trials.  Most  beds  are  smothered 
with  mosquito  curtains,  which  effectually  keep 
away  any  little  breath  of  air  there  is.  But  in  the 
hotter  districts  no  one  ever  dreams  of  sleeping 
without  a  punkah  going  all  night,  which  is  as 
necessary  for  rest  and  comfort  as  a  pillow.  The 
punkah,  it  is  hardly  needful  to  observe,  is  a  huge 
swinging  fan,  pulled  by  a  coolie,  who  squats  in 


218  Indian  Life 

the  verandah  outside,  and  under  it  a  great  ma- 
jority of  Anglo- Indians  pass  their  lives  for  no  in- 
considerable time  of  the  year. 

The  servants  in  an  Indian  bungalow  are  numer- 
ous, though  you  have  to  engage  many  more  in 
some  presidencies  than  in  others.  In  an  average 
district,  the  bachelor  will  keep  a  cook,  a  man  to 
do  the  waiting  and  house-work,  a  water-carrier,  a 
horse-keeper,  and  probably  a  grass-cutter,  a  couple 
of  punkah-coolies,  and  a  scavenger,  who  is  known 
as  the  "  sweeper,"  and  is  an  absolutely  indispens- 
able individual  under  the  sanitary  conditions  that 
exist.  A  married  man,  living  "comfortably," 
will  be  called  on  to  keep  a  cook,  table-attendant, 
bearer,  who  combines  the  duties  of  valet  and 
housemaid,  water-carrier,  washerman,  a  couple  of 
horse-keepers,  and  as  many  grass-cutters,  ditto 
punkah-coolies,  a  gardener  to  keep  the  compound 
under  cultivation,  a  chupprassi  or  peon,  to  hang 
about  and  make  himself  generally  useful  for  mes- 
sages and  carrying  letters,  and  a  sweeper.  In 
more  extravagant  households,  the  cook  has  his 
"  mate"  or  scullion,  and  the  number  of  table-at- 
tendants, bearers,  and  chupprassis  is  multiplied, 
as  also  the  horse-keepers  and  gardeners;  and  in 
nearly  every  establishment  there  is  a  deraie,  or 
tailor  and  milliner  combined,  who  does  all  the 
mending.  I  have  quite  forgotten  to  mention  the 
ayah,  or  lady's-maid,  who  is  absolutely  essential 
when  there  is  a  lady  in  the  house.  The  cost  of 
these  establishments  of  servants  will  vary  from 


Bungalow  Life  219 

three  to  twenty  pounds  and  more  a  month,  their 
wages  ranging  from  six  shillings  for  the  punkah- 
coolies  and  grass-cutters  to  two  pounds  for  the 
cook.  It  is  a  false  economy  to  have  a  bad  cook, 
for  you  want  an  artist  to  deal  with  the  inferior 
raw  material  of  the  East,  and  to  tempt  the  jaded 
appetite. 

Rent  is  an  expensive  item.  In  a  small  up- 
country  station  you  may  get  a  bungalow  for  three 
pounds  a  month  —  salaries,  wages,  house- rent, 
bills,  and  everything  in  India,  are,  or  should  be, 
paid  monthly — but  five  to  ten  pounds  is  the  aver- 
age rental,  and  in  the  metropolitan  cities  the  cost 
is  enormous,  and  people  pay  up  to  three  and  four 
hundred  a  year.  Servants  and  house-rent  are  the 
two  heaviest  items  in  keeping  up  an  Indian  bun- 
galow. Otherwise  the  cost  of  living  is  compara- 
tively small.  Bachelors  very  often  contract  with 
their  cooks  to  feed  them,  paying  a  lump  sum  per 
month  of  from  two  to  five  pounds,  and  receiving 
in  return  breakfast,  tiffin,  and  dinner,  and  early 
morning  and  afternoon  tea.  A  lady  who  looks 
after  her  "  godown  "  can  do  it  for  considerably 
less  per  head.  In  Bombay  or  Calcutta,  most  of 
the  hotels  and  boarding-houses  will  lodge  and  feed 
a  bachelor  exceedingly  well  for  ten  pounds  a 
month,  and  this  saves  all  expense  of  servants  ex- 
cept bearer  and  horse-keeper.  When  I  first 
started  housekeeping  in  the  jungle,  I  used  to  pay 
two  pounds  for  servant's  wages,  two  pounds  for 
house-rent,  two  pounds  for  my  cook's  contract  for 


220  Indian  Life 

food,  one  pound  for  the  keep  of  a  horse,  and  allow 
three  pounds  for  such  luxuries  as  tinned  English 
stores  and  liquors,  lamp-oil,  and  the  daily  paper, 
which,  in  those  days,  meant  eight  shillings  a 
month.  And  I  lived  like  a  fighting  cock!  A 
quarter  of  a  century  later,  my  household  expendi- 
ture, including  a  considerably  larger  staff  of  ser- 
vants, ranged  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  pounds 
a  month,  and  this  is  probably  the  average  ex- 
pended by  the  ordinary  Anglo-Indian  outside  the 
centres  where  living  is  proverbially  expensive. 
For  myself,  I  did  not  notice  much  difference  in 
the  cost  during  those  twenty-five  years,  and 
European  luxuries  were  decidedly  much  cheaper 
and  better.  Meat  varies  from  twopence  to  three- 
pence a  pound;  bread  is  a  penny  a  small  loaf; 
vegetables,  butter,  and  milk,  the  latter  sold  by 
weight,  are  much  cheaper  than  in  England;  eggs 
run  two  for  a  penny,  and  tea  you  can  purchase 
ridiculously  cheaply,  even  so  low  as  sixpence  a 
pound.  On  the  other  hand,  beer  is  a  luxury  that 
you  will  not  drink  in  the  jungles  for  less  than 
eightpence  or  tenpence  a  pint,  unless  you  get 
country-brewed,  which  is  a  little  less  expensive, 
and  moderate  in  quality,  and  whisky  will  cost  you 
four  to  five  shillings  a  bottle.  But  soda-water  is 
obtainable  at  sixpence  or  eightpence  a  dozen,  and 
there  is  a  manufactory  in  every  considerable  place 
where  three  or  four  Europeans  reside.  You  can 
get  good  cigars  for  two  shillings  and  eightpence 
to  four  shillings  a  hundred,  but  tobacco  is  dear. 


Bungalow  Life  221 

Russian  and  American  kerosene-oil  is  purchased 
by  the  five-gallon  tin  at  about  the  same  price  as 
in  England,  and  is  the  universal  illuminant. 
Lamps  are  made  especially  for  India,  the  ordinary 
English  ones  being  of  little  use  in  the  bungalow's 
large  rooms,  often  with  dark  ceilings  that  absorb 
a  great  deal  of  light.  I  once  took  out  half  a  dozen 
duplex-burner  lamps  from  England,  and  discarded 
them  all  within  a  month,  as  they  were  utterly 
powerless  to  perform  their  purpose.  All  cooking 
is  done  by  charcoal,  and  this  is  one  of  the  heaviest 
expenses  in  the  kitchen,  as  also  is  firewood  if  you 
happen  to  live  in  one  of  the  untimbered  districts. 
The  Anglo-Indian  is,  or  should  be,  an  early 
riser.  To  lie  late  in  bed  is  called  a  "  Europe 
morning."  A  cup  of  tea  is  always  served  when 
you  are  awakened,  and  as  soon  as  you  are  dressed 
comes  chotahazri,  or  the  little  breakfast,  consist- 
ing of  tea,  toast,  eggs,  and  fruit.  The  morning 
ride  follows,  and  the  most  is  made  of  the  cool  hours 
before  eight  or,  at  latest,  nine  o'clock.  With  the 
military,  however,  this  is  the  busiest  part  of  the 
day,  being  devoted  to  parades.  But  office  men, 
by  which  you  include  most  Government  officials 
and  all  commercial  men,  have  to  breakfast  at  nine 
to  reach  their  courts  or  offices  in  time  for  ten 
o'clock  opening.  Two  is  the  hour  for  tiffin,  often 
served  at  office;  in  fact,  in  some  of  the  merchants' 
offices  in  Calcutta  this  meal  is  provided  by  the 
firm.  Dinner  is  always  as  late  as  possible,  for 
after  sunset  the  gay  and  social  part  of  the  twenty- 


222  Indian  Life 

four  hours  begins.  After  dinner  every  one  ad- 
journs to  the  verandah,  and  stretches  himself  out 
in  a  lounge-chair  to  smoke,  and,  the  process  of 
digestion  over,  it  is  early  to  bed  if  you  want  a  full 
night's  sleep. 

In  the  hot  weather,  it  is  customary  to  ' '  shut  up 
the  bungalow"  at  about  seven  in  the  morning, 
when  the  temperature  is  moderately  low  in  com- 
parison with  what  it  will  rise  to  a  few  hours  later. 
Every  door  and  window  is  closed,  and  thereafter 
the  greatest  care  taken  to  make  entrances  and 
exits  as  quickly  as  possible,  for  a  door  left  open 
for  any  length  of  time  soon  raises  the  temperature. 
If  kept  carefully  closed,  it  is  remarkable  how  cool 
the  room  keeps  compared  with  the  heat  out  of 
doors.  Thermantidotes  and  tattis  are  other  de- 
vices for  generating  cool  air,  being  a  system  of 
forcing  a  draught  through  wet  screens  of  grass, 
which  are  cooled  by  the  evaporation.  They  are 
delicious  but  dangerous.  Water  is  cooled  for 
drinking  on  the  same  principle  (if  ice  is  unpro- 
curable), being  placed  in  a  porous  earthenware 
vessel,  and  swung  to  and  fro  in  the  heated  atmo- 
sphere, with  the  result  that  what  was  tepid  and 
nauseous  becomes  sufficiently  chilled.  In  old 
days,  a  special  servant  was  kept,  who  was  an  ex- 
pert at  water-cooling,  and  did  nothing  else;  but 
in  modern  days,  few  places  except  those  off  the 
line  of  rail  are  out  of  reach  of  ice,  the  price  of 
which  is  within  the  range  of  even  the  natives, 
being  retailed  at  about  a  halfpenny  a  pound. 


Bungalow  Life  223 

Nothing  strikes  the  English  eye  so  much  on 
first  taking  up  residence  in  an  Indian  bungalow 
as  the  tameness  of  the  bird  and  animal  life  that 
haunts  it.  The  sparrows  are  in  and  out  of  all 
the  rooms,  and  even  build  their  nests  in  a  chink 
of  the  ceiling.  I  have  watched  the  most  prodigious 
battles  between  a  cock  sparrow  and  his  reflection 
in  my  mirror,  and  he  and  his  kind  are  the  most 
abandoned  pilferers  when  the  table  is  set  for 
meals.  The  mitah,  or  Indian  starling,  is  tamer 
than  the  English  robin,  and  a  noisy  nuisance,  be- 
ing engaged  in  permanent  feuds  with  all  his  con- 
nections. The  crow  is  a  noted  robber,  and  nothing 
is  safe  from  him;  leave  a  cutlet  on  a  plate,  and  he 
will  snatch  it  off  in  a  twinkling.  Kites  swirl  over 
the  compound  all  day  long,  and  make  the  sweeper's 
life  a  burden,  watching  over  the  chickens.  Mon- 
keys in  some  districts  play  havoc  with  your  gar- 
den. The  little  grey  squirrels  are  in  and  out  of 
your  verandah  all  day  long,  and  ugly  lizards  bask 
in  the  sun  on  the  floor,  with  occasional  swift  darts 
at  a  resting  fly.  All  these  are  "shockingly  tame." 
If  the  list  of  aliens  in  your  premises  ended  here, 
you  would  not  have  much  to  complain  of.  But 
there  are  other  and  less  agreeable  inhabitants, 
such  as  snakes,  scorpions,  and  centipedes.  Spi- 
ders, too,  of  hideous  dimensions,  and  rats,  called 
"bandicoots,"  of  gigantic  size,  and  musk-rats, 
that  leave  an  odour  behind  them  most  horrible. 
It  is  said,  I  believe  with  perfect  truth,  that  a  musk- 
rat  running  over  a  bottle  of  wine  or  soda-water 


224  Indian  Life 

will  taint  its  contents.  You  seldom  hear  of  Euro- 
peans being  stung  by  snakes,  scorpions,  or  cen- 
tipedes; but  the  pests  are,  nevertherless,  often 
numerous, — how  common  in  some  places,  may  be 
gathered  from  the  fact  that  I  have  known  a  dog, 
that  was  particularly  clever  at  the  trick,  to  kill 
nine  scorpions  in  my  drawing-room  in  one  even- 
ing, just  after  the  bursting  of  the  monsoon,  when 
the  creatures  were  swarming  out  of  the  cracks 
and  crevices  in  which  they  had  passed  the  hot 
weather.  I  have  known  only  two  cases  of  fatal 
snake-bites,  both  natives,  during  a  period  when  I 
must  have  seen  some  thousands  of  the  reptiles, 
and  never  without  a  shuddering  horror  I  could 
never  overcome.  Lesser  pests  are  found  in  the 
flying  insects  of  the  rainy  season,  smelly  objec- 
tionables,  and  winged  ants  that  swarm  in  millions, 
and,  attracted  by  the  light,  seem  to  take  a  delight 
in  flopping  into  your  soup  at  dinner.  Nor  must 
white  ants  be  forgotten,  which  perhaps  do  more 
damage  than  any  other  insect.  They  will  eat 
away  the  bottom  of  a  portmanteau,  or  the  sole  of  a 
boot,  in  a  single  night,  and  they  make  it  impos- 
sible to  have  boarded  floors.  Window  frames  and 
doorposts  require  to  be  periodically  renewed,  for 
you  suddenly  find  them  collapsing,  and  on  ex- 
amination discover  they  are  perfectly  hollow, 
having  been  burrowed  into  by  white  ants  so  art- 
fully that  only  the  thin  skin  of  the  surface  is  left 
intact.  Fish-moths  are  a  funny  little  insect,  very 
like  a  silvery  fish,  that  dine  off  your  books,  bind- 


Bungalow  Life  225 

ing  or  inside,  with  impartiality.  Rats  and  mice 
of  the  common  English  variety  haunt  your  "  go- 
down,"  and  as  nobody  keeps  cats  in  India,  you 
are  very  much  at  their  mercy.  You  are  spared 
the  ravages  of  the  cat,  only  to  find  sometimes  a 
worse  trr>f  in  the  mongoose,  which,  if  it  gets  into 
your  fowl-nouse,  will  kill  every  inmate,  and  drink 
its  blood,  and  decamp.  And  for  your  water  there 
are  times  when  you  have  to  beware  of  guinea- 
worms,  and  always  of  the  microbes  of  dysentery 
and  cholera.  Fleas,  et  hoc  genus,  you  cannot  keep 
out  of  a  house  with  its  cement  floors,  and  mats  for 
them  to  find  instant  refuge  in,  and  probably  dogs 
enjoying  the  run  of  your  rooms.  In  the  rainy 
season,  I  have  often  suffered  from  a  regular  inva- 
sion of  fleas,  when  they  came  into  the  house  in 
legions  and  established  themselves  until  fine 
weather  set  in,  and  then  took  it  into  their  head 
to  depart  almost  as  unanimously  as  they  entered. 
Lastly,  the  night  brings  with  it  bats,  some  of  them 
harmless  little  fellows,  but  very  irritating  in  your 
dining  or  drawing  room;  others,  huge  brutes, 
called  flying  foxes,  that  pillage  your  fruit  trees. 
' '  The  naturalist  on  the  prowl ' '  (to  quote  the  title 
of  a  very  entertaining  Anglo-Indian  book)  will 
find  plenty  of  subjects  for  investigation  in  and 
around  the  bungalow. 

Looking  back  on  Indian  life,  the  one  place  in 
the  bungalow  that  always  recurs  to  my  memory 
with  pleasurable  sensations  is  the  verandah. 
There  is  nothing  like  it  in  English  homes.  There 


226  Indian  Life 

you  always  find  the  most  comfortable  armchairs, 
each  with  its  small  teapoy  by  its  side  to  hold  your 
peg-tumbler.  With  the  chicks  down,  the  glare 
kept  out,  and  the  sun  round  at  the  other  side  of 
the  house,  the  shady  verandah  becomes  the  abid- 
ing-place. It  is  generally  festooned  with  creeping 
flowers,  and  you  can  see  to  read  in  it  without  that 
straining  required  in  the  darkened  drawing-rooms 
of  Anglo-India.  And  it  is  inseparably  associated 
with  that  delicious  hour  after  dinner,  so  cool  and 
sleepy  and  lazy,  when  you  lay  yourself  out  for 
perhaps  the  only  part  of  the  day  free  from  positive 
physical  discomfort.  It  has,  too,  many  other  as- 
sociations; here  your  dogs,  best  companions  of 
your  lonely  exile,  lie  and  stretch  themselves  all 
day  long;  hither  are  your  horses  brought  to  re- 
ceive their  morning  treat  of  bread  or  sugar-cane. 
From  here  you  can  loll  and  watch  the  sparrows 
and  the  squirrels  and  the  minahs,  and  last,  but 
not  least,  the  crafty  crows,  that  each  and  all 
' '  have  a  song  to  sing,  oh !  "  if  you  can  only  under- 
stand their  language,  and  enter  into  their  idio- 
syncrasies. And  here  you  receive  your  guests, 
if  there  is  any  intimacy  between  you  and  them, 
without  stiff  formality.  I  vow  it  is  the  pleasantest 
spot  in  Anglo- India;  the  one  associated  with  its 
pleasantest  moments,  and  to  which  memory  re- 
curs with  just  a  soup ^ on  of  regret  that  in  returning 
to  England  we  have  cut  ourselves  off  from  veran- 
dah life! 


CHAPTER  XVI 

OUT-OF-DOOR  LIFE 

OUT-OF-DOOR  life  in  India  may  be  divided 
into  three  categories.  First  of  all  there  is 
the  life  known  as  "going  into  camp,"  or  "on 
tour,"  which  many  Government  officials  are 
obliged  to  follow  during  the  cold  weather  in  the 
execution  of  their  ordinary  duties;  then  the  ha- 
bitual open  air  employment  of  engineers,  forest 
officers,  planters,  railway  employees,  and  so  forth; 
and  lastly,  out-of-door  life  in  the  shape  of  sport 
and  recreation. 

From  the  beginning  of  November  to  the  end  of 
February  or  March  as  much  of  Anglo-India  as  is 
able  keeps  in  the  open,  to  make  up  for  those  eight 
weary  months  of  confinement,  during  which  it  has 
been  imprisoned  under  punkahs  and  bottled  up  in 
bungalows.  This  is  the  season  when  the  Govern- 
ment officials  travel  about  their  districts  on  in- 
spection tour,  which,  to  those  who  like  riding  and 
shooting,  is  the  most  enjoyable  of  all  the  various 
phases  of  duty. 

Camping  life  is,  indeed,  a  delightful  institution 
of  India.  The  itinerary  of  the  district  tour  is 
227 


228  Indian  Life 

mapped  out,  and  preparations  are  made  for  a 
three  or  four  months'  gipsy  existence  under  the 
skies,  but  accompanied  with  the  refinement  of 
comfort  which  the  Anglo-Indian  knows  so  well 
how  to  secure  under  such  conditions;  for  tent-life 
has  been  brought  to  a  high  pitch  of  luxury.  The 
camp  equipage  will  consist  of  a  big  office  tent,  and 
a  couple  for  dwelling  in,  with  accommodation  for 
the  servants.  There  will  be  bullock- carts,  or 
camels,  to  carry  the  baggage,  including  the  most 
ingenious  articles  of  camp-furniture,  which  can 
be  telescoped  or  folded  into  portable  dimensions. 
Indeed,  you  will  sometimes  see  superimposed  on 
a  couple  of  camels  a  variety  of  beds,  tables,  chairs, 
and  chests  of  drawers  (these  take  into  halves,  and 
are  slung  one  on  each  side),  which,  when  opened 
and  set  out,  suggest  the  requirement  of  a  small 
pantechnicon  van  for  their  removal.  Generally  a 
portion  of  the  poultry-yard  is  carried  during  these 
excursions,  and  a  goat  or  two  driven  along  to 
supply  milk.  And  when  the  camp  is  pitched 
under  a  shady  mango  tope,  or  grove  of  trees,  the 
dhurries  or  carpets  laid,  the  ingenious  collapsible 
furniture  arrayed  in  its  expanded  usefulness,  the 
camp-lamps  shedding  their  bright  glow  within 
the  tent,  a  crackling  fire  blazing  in  front  of  the 
door,  why,  there  are  very  few  habitations  for  which 
you  would  wish  to  change  this  travelling  one. 

The  cold-weather  tour  of  the  head  official  of  a 
district,  who  is  in  effect  its  governor,  is  a  sort  of 
triumphal  progress.  He  lives  on  the  fat  of  the 


Out-of-Door  Life  229 

land;  at  his  nod  transport  and  provisions  of  every 
description  appear  in  plenty;  for  him,  the  best 
khubber  where  game  is  to  be  found,  and  beaters 
galore  to  drive  it  out  of  its  haunts.  At  each 
halting-place  the  headman  comes  to  offer  him 
welcome,  and  the  finest  the  village  can  afford, 
and  all  the  ryots  assemble  to  make  their  salaams. 
His  tour  is  like  an  old  English  "  visitation,"  and, 
if  an  energetic  officer,  he  probably  does  more  good 
in  his  district  during  these  few  cold  weather 
months,  when  he  is  brought  face  to  face  with  its 
requirements,  than  during  the  rest  of  the  year. 
For  they  bring  him  into  touch  with  the  people  in 
a  way  that  can  never  occur  in  station  life. 

I  know  few  people  who  fail  to  appreciate  tent- 
life  in  India.  It  carries  with  it  a  sensation  of  its 
own  of  novelty,  freedom,  and  movement.  Here 
to-day,  and  there  to-morrow!  Away  from  the 
civilisation  of  the  head  station,  and  in  a  delight- 
ful atmosphere  of  unconventionally !  Not  until  a 
man  has  spent  several  long  months  in  office  and 
bungalow  can  he  fully  realise  the  joy  and  relief  of 
the  plain  and  jungle,  far  transcending  the  pleasure 
of  a  seaside  holiday  in  England,  or  a  trip  to  the 
northern  moors.  And,  best  of  all,  camping  out 
amalgamates  duty  with  pleasure.  What  health, 
what  spirits,  what  appetite  it  brings;  all  the  rust 
of  bungalow  life  is  soon  rubbed  off,  and  the  jaded 
palate,  that  has  toyed  with  three  nominal  meals  a 
day  all  through  the  burning  hot  weather  and  the 
steaming  rains,  now  astonishes  even  its  owner. 


230  Indian  Life 

One  is  accustomed  to  associate  tent-life  in  Eng- 
land with  wet  Wimbledons  or  blazing  Bisleys,  or 
excursions  up  river,  and  experiments  in  cooking 
that  are  generally  unsuccessful.  But  they  know 
how  to  do  the  thing  better  in  India,  where  a  camp 
conducted  by  experienced  and  expert  servants  is 
apt  to  astonish  the  new-comer.  Do  not  imagine 
you  rough  it  because  you  live  in  tents.  Except- 
ing that  your  roof  is  canvas,  there  is  little  differ- 
ence between  your  comforts  on  tour  and  those  in 
your  bungalow.  You  will  dine  as  well  as  in  your 
dining-room,  though  your  kitchen  is  nothing  but 
a  few  stones  grouped  to  support  the  cooking-pots 
under  a  tree.  And  you  may  reckon  upon  abso- 
lutely fine  weather,  with  a  temperature  like  the 
English  climate  in  July  or  August,  unless  your 
fate  takes  you  to  some  of  the  hotter  districts. 
But,  ordinarily  speaking,  no  one  goes  out  into 
camp  until  the  temperature  is  in  the  pleasant 
stage. 

If  you  are  fond  of  shooting,  there  are  few  places 
where  you  cannot  indulge  in  it.  Shooting  is  per- 
haps the  greatest  charm  of  official  camp-life.  It 
is  easy  for  the  official,  who  in  camp  is  entirely  his 
own  master,  to  arrange  his  office  hours  so  as  to 
permit  of  three  or  four  hours  with  the  gun.  In 
the  open  country  there  is  coursing  also,  and  a 
couple  of  greyhounds  will  afford  a  pleasant  varia- 
tion of  sport.  An  hour's  stroll  in  the  evening 
nearly  always  takes  you  for  a  round  where  you 
can  add  to  your  larder. 


Out-of-Door  Life  231 

And  then  the  pleasure  of  marching.  You  are 
going,  let  us  say,  to  shift  camp  to-morrow.  After 
dinner,  your  big  dwelling- tent  is  struck  and  packed 
whilst  you  are  enjoying  your  postprandial  cheroot 
over  the  camp-fire,  and,  with  its  furniture,  sent 
ahead  to  the  next  halting-place.  Your  sleeping- 
tent  remains  for  you  to  spend  the  night  in,  and 
after  early  breakfast  the  next  morning,  you  mount 
your  horse  and  canter  the  ten  or  fifteen  miles  that 
have  to  be  travelled,  or  perhaps  shoot  over  a  part 
of  the  ground,  arriving  at  your  new  camp  at  ten 
or  eleven  o'clock,  to  find  your  tent  pitched  and  a 
breakfast  awaiting  you,  for  the  cook  went  on 
ahead  after  serving  your  dinner.  By  tiffin-time, 
your  sleeping-tent  will  have  arrived,  and  by  three 
o'clock,  except  for  the  change  of  scene  and  sur- 
roundings, you  will  hardly  tell  that  any  alteration 
has  been  made  in  the  encampment.  And  so  you 
march,  from  place  to  place,  always  comfortable, 
never  put  out,  and  living  with  as  much  regularity 
as  you  would  at  home,  except  for  that  unpunctu- 
ality  which  is  often  a  concomitant  of  shooting, 
when  a  long  chase  after  a  wounded  quarry,  or 
the  seductions  of  a  particularly  hot  field  of  quail, 
or  well-stocked  swamp  of  snipe,  keep  you  abroad 
longer  than  you  intended. 

Take  it  for  all  in  all,  there  is  no  phase  of  Anglo- 
Indian  life  so  delightful  as  camping  out.  Whether 
it  is  the  official  on  his  rounds  of  duty,  or  the  sol- 
dier on  the  route  march  from  cantonment  to  can- 
tonment, or  the  sportsman  engaged  in  the  pursuit 


232  Indian  Life 

he  loves  best,  you  may  be  sure  one  and  all  are  en- 
joying themselves.  For  my  own  part,  the  happiest 
holidays  I  spent  in  my  life  were  under  canvas, 
and  when  I  look  back  to  those  camping-days  on 
the  plains  of  Kattywar  or  the  Punjab,  in  the  jun- 
gles of  the  Ghauts  and  the  Terai,  or  on  the  slopes 
of  the  Himalayas,  I  have  an  idea  that  I  would 
change  the  civilisation  of  this  congenial  home-life 
for  India  again,  if  it  only  meant  camping  out  and 
shooting ! 

L,et  us  turn  now  to  those  whose  duties  are  al- 
ways more  or  less  out  of  doors  in  India.  I  will 
pass  over  the  soldier,  because  his  career  in  canton- 
ments is  not  an  open  air  one  except  so  far  as  the 
cooler  morning  hours  are  concerned,  and  in  the 
cold  weather  he  camps  it  during  the  relief  season 
in  much  the  same  way  as  the  civilian  official. 
Saving  when  on  active  service,  he  is  practically 
resident  in  his  barracks  or  bungalow  during  those 
fierce  noontide  heats  when  exposure  is  trying. 

Perhaps  the  hardest  life  of  any  lived  by  a  Euro- 
pean in  India  is  that  of  the  engine-driver  on  the 
railway.  True,  he  gets  remarkably  good  wages, 
two  to  three  hundred  pounds  a  year;  but  he  earns 
them!  In  the  hot  weather  it  is  by  no  means  an 
unknown  thing  for  an  engine-driver  to  be  found 
dead  from  heat  apoplexy  on  his  engine,  and  many 
European  guards  suffer  in  a  lesser  degree.  And 
on  the  railway  generally  there  is  a  constant  ex- 
posure to  the  sun  that  makes  it  a  far  from  enviable 
line  of  life. 


Out-of-Door  Life  233 

Civil  engineers  in  the  Public  Works  Department 
have  also  a  great  deal  of  hot- weather  outdoor 
work.  It  is  a  good  season  for  building,  and  they 
are  constantly  called  upon  to  inspect  the  works, 
such  as  roads,  bridges,  and  canals,  under  their 
charge.  For  them,  camp-life  does  not  bear  such  a 
pleasant  complexion  as  for  some  of  their  confreres 
in  Government  employ,  and  to  keep  well  in  touch 
with  your  district  in  May  and  June,  and  "  slog 
at  it "  out  of  doors  in  a  temperature  of  over  a 
hundred  in  the  shade,  is  apt  to  try  the  strongest 
man.  Officials  in  the  police  suffer  the  same  in- 
conveniences, whilst  the  forest  officer,  the  "jungle 
sahib"  as  he  is  called,  is  by  the  very  nature  of 
his  occupation  a  man  of  the  open.  Such  officials 
are  practically  touring  nine  or  ten  months  out  of 
the  twelve,  only  housing  up  in  the  headquarters 
station  during  the  monsoon  months,  when  they 
do  all  their  office  work  and  annual  reports. 

Perhaps  of  all  out-of-door  workers  the  planters 
have  the  best  time  of  it,  especially  those  favoured 
ones  who  live  in  the  "  hills,"  like  the  planters  of 
Darjeeling  and  the  Neilgherries.  Even  under 
much  less  pleasant  circumstances  they  get  accli- 
matised, and  there  are  old  stagers  in  steaming 
Assam  who  vow  it  is  one  of  the  best  climates  in 
India.  The  tea-planters  are  the  most  numerous  in 
this  body,  and  are  chiefly  distributed  over  North- 
ern and  North-Eastern  India,  with  a  few  in  Tra- 
vancore.  In  Southern  India  are  the  coffee-planters, 
confined  practically  to  the  Madras  Presidency. 


234  Indian  Life 

Indigo  planting,  whose  home  is  in  Bengal  and 
Behar,  is  a  decaying  industry,  but  the  life  used  to 
be  reckoned  the  best  of  the  three.  All  enjoy  a 
holiday  more  or  less  in  the  cold  weather,  when 
work  is  slack. 

Life  on  a  tea  plantation,  when  markets  and 
seasons  are  favourable  and  the  climate  good,  goes 
as  near  perfection  as  Anglo-Indian  life  may  for  a 
young  and  active  man.  The  home  is  often  a 
settled  one,  and  that  is  a  great  factor  in  making 
yourself  comfortable  in  an  Indian  bungalow. 
You  furnish  your  house  for  living  in,  not  for 
scrambling  out  of;  you  plant  your  garden  with 
trees  whose  fruit  you  may  legitimately  hope  to 
eat,  and  you  settle  down  to  make  yourself  com- 
fortable. Unhappily,  the  good  old  days  are  past 
when  prosperity  was  universal,  and  the  modern 
tea-planter  has  to  bear  a  heavy  burden  of  anxiety 
under  the  altered  conditions  that  have  made  the 
industry  a  precarious  one. 

Here  is  a  description  of  a  tea- planter's  day  on 
his  estate.  He  is  up  before  sunrise,  and  after  a 
good  chotahazri,  to  which  he  seems  able  to  do 
better  justice  than  most  folk,  off  to  his  factory  to 
take  the  morning  reports  and  inspect  the  earlier 
stages  of  manufacture.  This  keeps  him  fully  em- 
ployed until  nine  o'clock,  when  he  will  jump  on 
his  horse  and  ride  round  the  outdoor  work,  in- 
specting the  gangs  of  coolies  in  the  field  until  the 
eleven  o'clock  gong  sounds  to  suspend  work. 
Galloping  back  to  his  bungalow,  he  enjoys  a  bath, 


Out-of-Door  Life  235 

and  sits  down  to  the  "planter's  breakfast,"  which 
is  not  a  mere  bacon-and-eggs  affair,  but  a  dejeuner 
a  lafourchette,  with  a  reputation  of  its  own.  Often 
it  is  partaken  of  in  the  verandah,  and  is  always 
an  elaborate  function  round  which  the  working- 
day  revolves.  Then  comes  the  lounge  in  the  long 
grasshopper  verandah  chair  and  the  luxurious 
cheroot  that  has  a  better  flavour  than  any  other 
in  the  twenty-four  hours,  with,  perhaps,  forty 
winks  to  be  winked,  though  as  a  rule  the  planter 
is  far  too  busy  in  the  hot  weather  to  snatch  a  nap. 
About  half-past  twelve  there  is  another  visit  to  be 
paid  to  the  factory  and  office,  a  court  to  be  held  at 
which  administrative  work  is  gone  through,  such 
as  paying  the  men,  giving  out  contracts,  physick- 
ing the  sick,  and  finally  there  comes  the  hot  after- 
noon visit  to  the  operations  in  the  field,  the  most 
trying  time  of  the  whole  day.  At  half-past  four 
the  planter  knocks  off,  and  may  be  considered  to 
have  done  a  fair  day's  ddg,  or  work.  Now  comes 
recreation — lawn-tennis,  a  ride  to  visit  a  neigh- 
bour, or  a  walk  with  the  dogs.  This  in  the  manu- 
facturing season;  in  the  cold  weather,  when  the 
factory  is  shut,  one  round  of  the  outdoor  work 
generally  suffices,  and  there  are  long  afternoons 
to  be  spent  in  shooting,  or  playing  cricket,  or 
other  sports  in  which  many  can  find  time  to  meet 
together  and  take  a  part.  Sunset,  with  the  short 
twilight  of  a  southern  land,  terminates  the  after- 
noon all  too  soon,  but  not  the  pleasure,  for  now 
all  collect  in  the  verandah  for  pegs  and  pipes  until 


236  Indian  Life 

dinner.  Or  perchance  there  is  a  piano  in  the 
bungalow,  by  no  means  an  uncommon  thing,  and 
then  there  is  a  musical  interlude,  or,  equally 
popular,  a  rubber  of  whist.  But  whatsoever  form 
of  diversion  occurs,  it  is  flavoured  with  "  planters' 
hospitality,"  which  has  won  a  name  for  itself. 
After  dinner  there  is  little  going  on,  for  the  planter 
as  a  rule  falls  asleep  after  a  long  day  in  the  open, 
and  if  he  manages  a  game  of  whist  it  will  be  as 
much  as  he  cares  to  keep  awake  for,  for  he  will 
get  up  at  or  before  sunrise  next  morning. 

A  planter  is  an  autocrat  on  his  estate,  and  if  he 
is  lucky  enough  to  live  in  a  district  where  the  la- 
bour is  easily  done,  and  what  is  more  ;mport- 
ant,  easily  obtained,  there  is  no  man  in  India 
more  free  and  independent.  But  of  late  years,  a 
cloud  has  hovered  over  the  planting  industry, 
and  the  "good  times"  for  indigo,  tea,  or  coffee 
have  gone  by.  "Economy"  is  the  cry,  and  a 
cutting  down  of  salaries,  never  munificent,  the 
result — in  some  cases  to  the  extent  of  half  the 
former  emoluments.  Indian  planting  was  a  fine 
opening  once  for  energetic  youth,  without  much 
brains;  it  is  so  no  longer,  even  if  the  youth  has 
brains  as  well  as  energy. 

Lastly,  in  this  review  of  out-of-door  life  in  In- 
dia, we  come  to  sport  and  recreation,  and  here  is 
a  feast  of  good  things.  The  Europeans  in  the 
East  enter  with  a  peculiar  zest,  both  from  en- 
thusiasm and  because  of  the  benefit  that  comes 
from  physical  exercise  into  sports  that  take  them 


Out-of-Door  Life  237 

out  of  their  bungalows.  I  suppose  the  game  of 
lawn-tennis  has  done  more  for  the  average  Anglo- 
Indian  than  all  the  drugs  in  the  pharmacopoeia.  I 
have  seen  men  playing  it  in  the  height  of  the  hot 
season,  with  a  turkish-bath  towel  hung  on  a  pole 
just  outside  the  court,  the  condition  of  which  at  the 
end  of  a  set  was  eloquent  of  some  evil  humours  ex- 
pelled from  the  body.  Tennis  is  a  game  adapted  for 
the  limited  society  of  an  up-country  station,  and 
one  in  which  ladies  can  not  only  join,  but  in 
India,  from  constant  practice,  become  almost  as 
proficient  as  men.  The  courts  are  very  hard  as 
a  rule,  many  being  made  of  beaten  earth,  and  the 
game  requires  a  display  of  far  more  agility  than 
when  played  on  grass. 

Cricket  is  indulged  in  a  good  deal  in  the  cold 
weather,  on  very  fast  pitches  as  a  rule.  It  is 
particularly  popular  amongst  the  military,  for  in 
civil  society  it  is  not  often  feasible  to  get  up  a 
full  game.  But  in  a  cantonment  there  are  often 
a  grand  series  of  matches  through  the  winter. 
Football  is  not  unfrequently  played  in  the  rainy 
season,  when  the  temperature  is  most  trying,  and 
the  energy  and  enthusiasm  shown  under  such 
circumstances  speak  eloquently  for  its  popularity. 
The  inter-regimental  Football  Challenge  Cup 
gives  rise  to  an  exciting  competition;  in  fact,  for 
the  keenest  rivalry  in  purely  English  games  you 
have  always  to  go  to  a  cantonment.  Otherwhere, 
except  in  the  big  cities,  the  population  is  too  small 
to  supply  full  sides  for  cricket  or  football. 


238  Indian  Life 

Racing  has  been  the  favourite  sport  in  India 
from  time  immemorial  for  those  who  can  afford  it, 
but,  of  recent  years,  the  rich  rajahs  have  stormed 
the  turf,  and  monopolised  all  the  prizes.  There 
are,  however,  a  large  number  of  ' '  sky  meetings, ' ' 
as  they  are  called,  where  the  man  of  small  means, 
who  loves  the  sport  for  the  sake  of  the  horse,  is 
able  to  enter  his  own  nag  and  ride  it,  and  at  these, 
if  the  business  is  less  imposing,  the  fun  is  none  the 
less.  The  gymkhana  meet,  which  is  a  purely  local 
affair,  gives  the  amateur  a  field  day,  and  brings 
the  pastime  within  reach  of  all,  and  as  every 
one  owns  a  "gee,"  and  riding  is  a  universal  ac- 
complishment, the  "scurry  stakes"  appeal  to  all. 
Nor  are  these  gymkhanas  limited  to  racing,  but 
are  an  olla  podrida  of  all  sorts  of  sports,  and  you 
can  spend  an  exceedingly  entertaining  afternoon 
at  them,  engaging  in,  or  looking  on,  a  variety  of 
competitions  which  include  tent-pegging,  lime- 
cutting,  and  kindred  exhibitions  of  skill  on  horse- 
back, for  the  art  of  equitation  enters  largely  into 
all  sportive  gatherings. 

Polo  is  a  very  favourite  game  in  India,  as  may 
well  be  imagined  in  a  country  where  every  sub- 
altern keeps  a  horse,  and  has  not  the  slightest 
objection  to  risking  his  neck.  No  military  can- 
tonment and  but  few  of  the  larger  stations  are 
without  their  polo  ground,  and  there  is  always  a 
"  polo  evening  "  once  or  twice  a  week.  The  cari- 
caturist who  is  good  at  horses  with  his  pencil  will 
find  many  humours  on  the  Indian  polo  field, 


Out-of-Door  Life  239 

where  men  with  slender  purses  play  the  game  on 
the  same  long-suffering  animals  they  ride  in  the 
morning,  and  trap  in  the  middle  day,  and  whose 
original  cost  may  not  have  exceeded  a  ten-pound 
note.  For  you  can  get  a  very  passable  country- 
bred  nag  for  that  sum,  and  for  twenty  pounds  a 
mount  you  need  not  be  ashamed  to  be  seen  strid- 
ing. Some  of  the  hill  ponies  will  give  you  extra- 
ordinary value  for  money.  I  remember  buying 
one  for  six  pounds  that  I  rode  every  day  for  twelve 
years,  and  he  was  good  enough  to  give  away  but 
too  good  to  shoot  at  the  end  of  that  period.  But 
that  was  up  in  the  Himalayas,  and  the  same  pony 
would  probably  have  commanded  three  times  the 
price  in  the  plains.  I  have  owned  perhaps  a  score 
of  what  are  called  "plantation  ponies,"  and  never 
gave  more  than  twenty  pounds  for  the  best  of 
them;  several  of  the  cheaper  ones  carried  me  forty 
and  forty-five  miles  a  day. 

If  I  have  left  pig-sticking  and  shooting  to  the 
last,  it  is  certainly  not  because  they  are  the  least 
in  the  sporting  pleasures  of  India.  The  former  is 
accounted  the  finest  of  all  field  sports,  and  takes 
the  place  of  hunting  in  England,  with  the  ad- 
ditional advantage  of  being  within  the  reach  of 
many  who  could  never  afford  to  ride  to  hounds  at 
home.  The  sport  is  fostered  by  "  tent  clubs," 
which  are  practically  camping-out  clubs,  and  Sun- 
day is  perhaps  the  most  popular  day  for  a  meet. 
The  members  ride  out  to  a  pre-arranged  camp  on 
the  Saturday  afternoon,  hunt  all  Sunday,  and  are 


240  Indian  Life 

back  at  their  stations  on  Monday  in  time  for  office 
or  parade.  The  sport  dates  from  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  the  old  term  of  the  "  fraternity  of 
pig-stickers"  still  holds  good,  for  there  is  a  verit- 
able brotherhood  amongst  those  who  follow  this 
entrancing  method  of  hunting. 

L,ast  of  all  conies  shooting,  which  I  may  call  the 
universal  sport  of  India.  Poor  in  resources  is  that 
Anglo-Indian  who  does  not  possess  a  gun.  The 
game  is  free  to  all  to  shoot,  the  only  restriction 
being  a  "  close  "  season,  and,  in  some  districts,  a 
regard  for  the  prejudices  of  the  natives. 

Thus  peacocks  in  many  places  and  neilghai,  or 
wild  cattle,  are  accounted  sacred,  and,  in  fact,  so 
tame,  owing  to  immunity  from  chase,  that  no 
sportsman  would  shoot  them.  The  former  may 
be  seen  sunning  themselves  on  the  village  walls, 
and  the  neilghai  is  a  privileged  despoiler  of  crops, 
who  has  never  experienced  anything  more  dread- 
ful than  a  hoot.  Tiger-shooting  is  the  sport  of 
the  wealthy,  for  it  entails  a  heavy  expenditure  in 
elephants,  beaters,  and  general  arrangements. 
Jungle  hdnking  for  big  game,  such  as  sambre, 
deer,  and  animals  which  require  to  be  driven  to- 
wards the  guns  out  of  thick  jungle,  also  costs  a 
considerable  amount,  for  although  beaters  are 
only  paid  twopence  or  threepence  a  day  per  head, 
when  you  have  to  engage  them  in  regiments,  it  is 
prudent  to  tot  up  the  outlay.  But  antelope  stalk- 
ing in  the  plains  is  open  to  most  people  at  the  ex- 
pense of  a  railway  fare — you  may  occasionally  see 


Out-of-Door  Life  241 

the  buck  as  you  pass  through  the  wilder  parts  of 
the  country  in  the  train — and  can  be  combined 
with  small-game  shooting.  The  railways  have, 
however,  done  much  to  exterminate  the  antelope 
in  many  parts  of  India,  and  render  them  very 
wild.  I  remember,  thirty  years  ago,  shooting  in 
Kattywar,  and  seeing  herds  of  many  hundreds  of 
buck  where  nowadays  ten  are  quite  difficult  to 
come  across.  It  is  the  same  with  the  more  savage 
wild  animals.  In  my  plantation  was  a  ravine 
called  the  "Wolves'  nullah,"  from  the  wolves 
that  once  swarmed  in  it;  but  not  one  has  been 
seen  there  for  twenty  years. 

It  is,  however,  the  small  game  that  never  fails 
to  give  sport.  Partridge,  hare,  snipe,  wild-duck, 
and  quail  are  open  to  almost  any  Anglo-Indian 
who  takes  the  trouble  to  look  for  them.  There  is 
no  fun  equal  to  snipe  and  quail  shooting  for  the 
amount  of  blazing  away  it  gives  you,  and  both 
birds  are  excellent  for  the  table,  which  is  more 
than  you  can  say  for  Indian  game  in  general. 
Few  sports  surpass  duck-shooting,  if  you  get  into 
a  good  spot,  and,  after  the  woodcock,  the  mallard 
is  about  the  best  eating  bird  in  India.  I  do  not 
think  English  people  realise  how  easily  Indian 
shooting  is  to  be  enjoyed.  In  1874,  I  made  a 
sporting  trip  to  India  for  six  months,  and  after 
deducting  two  for  the  voyage,  much  slower  then 
than  it  is  now,  had  four  months  as  good  sport  as 
any  one  could  desire,  and,  big  and  small,  killed 
about  three  thousand  head  of  game.  The  entire 

16 


242  Indian  Life 

cost  of  the  trip  was  under  two  hundred  pounds; 
but  I  "  gipsy 'd  "  it  in  camp,  knocking  about  with 
a  single  small  tent,  one  horse,  and  a  couple  of 
camels.  Two  or  three  going  together  could  ac- 
complish such  a  trip  nowadays  as  economically, 
and  if  ' '  furloughs ' '  in  England  were  as  long  and 
as  common  as  in  India,  I  could  not  imagine  a 
better  way  of  spending  them  than  three  or  four 
months'  camping  under  an  Indian  sky. 

The  out-of-door  recreations  of  city  life  in  India 
need  little  description.  There  is  something  of 
the  cockney  in  the  Anglo-Indian  who  lives  in 
Calcutta  or  Bombay.  A  ride  is  generally  the 
limit  of  his  outdoor  exercise,  and  he  "  Rotten- 
rows"  it  as  gingerly  as  you  may  see  in  Hyde 
Park.  More  frequently  the  limit  of  his  horse- 
manship is  the  bandstand,  where  he  lolls  in  his 
saddle,  or  nerves  himself  for  a  walk  by  strand  or 
seashore.  In  Bombay,  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
yachting,  and  in  the  swift-sailing  lateen-rigged 
boats,  it  is  passing  pleasant  to  spend  an  evening  in 
the  harbour,  and  better  still  to  take  an  extended 
trip  up  some  of  the  creeks.  But  the  more  strenu- 
ous exercises  always  gave  me  the  more  pleasure 
and  profit,  and  I  look  back  to  the  days  I  spent  in 
jungle  and  jheel,  with  rifle  and  gun,  a  couple  of 
good  nags  to  carry  me  afield,  and  a  leash  of  grey- 
hounds to  encourage  me  to  a  gallop  after  a  jackal 
now  and  again,  I  look  backward  to  those  with  a 
sigh,  as  I  find  myself  surrounded  with  the  bricks 
and  mortar  of  London,  and  recognise  that  there 


Out-of-Door  Life 


243 


are  some  phases  of  Anglo-Indian  out-of-door  life 
you  cannot  duplicate  in  England,  wish  you  ever 
so  hard.  If  Eastern  exile  were  all  composed  of 
camp-life,  very  few  would  care  to  terminate  it 
until  overtaken  by  that  fatal  ailment  called  Anno 
Domini. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

SEPIA   SURROUNDINGS 

THE  Anglo-Indian  cannot  escape  from  the 
tyranny  of  the  brown  skin.  There  is  no 
privacy  in  India;  the  fierce  glare  that  beats  upon 
a  throne  is  hardly  less  inquisitorial  than  the  quiet 
glances  of  apparently  mild  brown  eyes  directed  at 
the  unconscious  Anglo-Indian  unceasingly. 

The  magnificent  staff  of  native  servants,  about 
which  so  much  has  been  written  and  remarked, 
is,  in  effect,  a  staff  of  spies.  There  is  no  escape 
from  them,  and  from  the  time  that  you  tumble 
out  of  bed  in  the  morning  to  the  hour  when  you 
turn  in  again,  you  are  never  free  from  the  sensa- 
tion of  "somebody  there."  Even  through  the 
silent  night  hours  the  periodical  cough  of  the 
punkah  coolie  serves  to  remind  you  of  the  ever- 
watchful  presence.  You  live  in  a  perpetual  qui 
vzve,  for  amidst  these  sepia  surroundings  you 
know  you  are  the  conspicuous  object. 

By  nature,  natives  are  a  most  inquisitive  folk, 
and  India  is  a  land  of  gup,  which  is  the  vernacu- 
lar for  gossip.  Whatever  you  do,  say,  and  (I  was 
almost  adding)  think,  is  reported,  and  whatever 
?44 


Sepia  Surroundings          245 

happens  in  your  bungalow  becomes  common  in- 
formation to  your  neighbours.  Anglo- Indians, 
and  especially  their  wives,  are  in  many  cases  con- 
firmed gossips.  The  ayah,  or  lady's-maid,  has  a 
genius  for  disseminating  scandal,  and  I  have  been 
led  to  believe  that  more  tittle-tattle  is  talked  dur- 
ing the  hour  when  the  hair  of  Anglo-Indian  wo- 
mankind is  being  brushed  than  at  any  other  of 
the  twenty-four.  Nor  can  I  acquit  the  masculine 
sex  of  freedom  from  a  similar  curiosity,  for  it  often 
displays  a  distinct  partiality  for  listening  to  the 
gup  of  the  barber,  or  the  babblings  of  the  bearer 
who  dresses  his  master. 

And  here,  in  passing,  I  may  make  a  note  of  the 
lazy  and  luxurious  habits  into  which  sepia  sur- 
roundings seduce  the  Anglo-Indian,  and  the  royal 
way  in  which  he  adapts  himself  to  being  waited 
upon.  There  are  many  little  personal  offices  in 
India  which  it  is  derogatory  to  perform  for  yourself, 
and  the  extension  of  this  leads  to  the  performance 
of  several  others  by  proxy.  No  one,  for  instance, 
laces  up  his  own  boots,  or  carries  a  parcel,  or 
undertakes  anything  in  the  nature  of  an  errand, 
and  I  have  seen  Europeans  walking  in  the  rain 
with  natives  to  carry  their  umbrellas  over  them. 
But  it  is  in  his  dressing-room  that  this  peculiar 
trait  in  the  Anglo-Indian  character  is  emphasised. 
Many  a  man  reverts  to  the  habits  of  his  child- 
hood, and  practically  allows  his  bearer  to  dress 
him.  His  vest  and  shirt  are  held  open  for  him  to 
slip  his  head  and  shoulders  into,  the  passage  of 


246  Indian  Life 

his  trousers  is  simplified,  his  socks  and  shoes  are 
put  on  for  him,  and  assistance  with  his  cummer- 
bund, or  waistband,  follows  as  a  matter  of  course. 
It  is  sometimes  really  ludicrous  to  see  young  fel- 
lows, a  few  months  in  the  country,  adapt  them- 
selves to  these  Sybaritic  idiosyncrasies!  As  for 
old  stagers,  they  really  become  almost  as  helpless 
as  infants,  and  will  employ  the  barber  to  cut  their 
toenails.  After  a  day's  shooting,  the  sportsman's 
feet  are  usually  washed  by  his  faithful  attendant, 
and  the  brushing  and  folding  of  clothes  are  per- 
formances that  the  average  Englishman  in  India 
forgets  how  to  accomplish. 

If  you  do  not  find  privacy  in  the  dressing-room, 
you  can  hardly  be  free  from  espionage  in  the  rest 
of  the  bungalow,  where  it  is  chronic.  The  ver- 
andah is  guarded  by  the  chupprassi,  who  squats 
or  stands  there  to  run  errands,  carry  letters  (there 
are  no  messages  despatched  in  India,  where  all 
communications  are  sent  by  chits,  which  is  the 
anglicised  and  abbreviated  Hindustani  for 
"  notes  "),  and  act  generally  the  part  of  a  human 
bell.  In  Egypt,  you  "  clap  hands,  clap  hands  till 
somebody  comes  ;  "  but  in  India,  you  lift  up  your 
voice  and  shout,  which  is  sometimes  inconvenient 
and  often  irritating.  By  the  word  you  use,  you 
reveal  to  which  Presidency  you  belong.  If  you 
belong  to  Bengal,  you  cry,  Koihai?  which  means, 
"  Is  anybody  there  ?  "  if  to  Bombay,  the  summons 
is  for  "  Boy!  "  The  chupprassi  is  the  chief  of 
spies.  lesser  ones  are  the  gardener,  who  keeps 


Sepia  Surroundings          247 

his  eye  upon  you  as  you  lounge  in  the  verandah; 
the  groom,  who  attends  you  when  you  are  out  rid- 
ing, and  is  an  athletic  runner;  the  kitmudghar, 
who  waits  behind  your  chair  at  table,  and  the 
native  clerks  who  squat  round  your  feet  at  office. 
Try  how  you  will,  you  cannot  get  away  from  the 
native;  he  is  "  in  the  air,"  so  to  speak,  and  you 
come  at  last  to  resign  yourself  to  a  species  of 
tyranny  that  completely  robs  you  of  the  charm  of 
solitude.  It  is  an  atmosphere  difficult  to  realise 
in  England,  where  an  Englishman's  home  is  his 
castle;  in  India,  the  bungalow  is  a  combination  of 
a  conservatory  and  observatory. 

And  what  makes  this  state  of  things  so  anoma- 
lous is  that  there  is  no  assimilation  between  black 
and  white.  They  are,  and  always  must  remain, 
races  foreign  to  one  another  in  sentiment,  sympa- 
thies, feelings,  and  habits.  Between  you  and  a 
native  friend  there  is  a  great  gulf  which  no  inti- 
macy can  bridge — the  gulf  of  caste  and  custom. 
Amalgamation  is  utterly  impossible  in  any  but 
the  most  superficial  sense,  and  affinity  out  of  the 
question. 

Nor  in  its  material  sense  is  affinity  desirable. 
Without  wishing  to  say  anything  offensive  about 
my  black  brother,  I  must  protest  that  when  the 
atmosphere  is  too  redolent  of  him  and  the  ungu- 
ents with  which  he  anoints  himself,  he  is  decidedly 
objectionable,  and  there  are  times,  many  times, 
when  it  is  as  well  that  he  should  not  get  between 
you  and  the  breeze.  It  is  a  delicate  subject  to 


248  Indian  Life 

dwell  on,  but  decidedly  one  of  the  drawbacks  of 
too  "  close  "  sepia  surroundings.  I  will  only  in- 
stance a  single  illustration.  It  is  one  of  the  an- 
omalies of  railway  travelling  in  India  that  whilst 
third-class  carriages  are  reserved  for  the  "  poor- 
white,"  the  first-  and  second-class  passengers  have 
no  guarantee  against  the  intrusion  of  gentlemen 
of  colour  whose  domestic  and  social  habits  are  not 
in  accord  with  our  ideas  of  delicacy  of  behaviour. 
There  are  native  ' '  compliments ' '  after  a  hearty 
meal  which  are  simply  disgusting  to  an  Anglo- 
Saxon;  and  nature  did  not  build  the  white  man 
and  black  on  suitable  lines  to  hugger-mugger  it 
in  a  small  saloon  on  a  railway,  which  may  be 
their  mutual  abode  for  two  or  three  days.  I  am 
not  exaggerating  when  I  say  that  the  presence  of 
a  native  in  the  same  carriage  with  you  doubles 
the  disgust  one  feels  for  a  long,  hot,  and  trying 
journey  in  a  small,  stuffy  space. 

Let  us  turn  to  another  and  less  unpleasant  as- 
pect of  the  sepia.  It  is  particularly  conspicuous 
in  office  life,  where  all  clerical  work  is  performed 
by  educated  natives.  A  civilian's  office  is  manned 
with  Hindu  and  Mahomedan  scribes,  and  all  the 
"writers"  in  a  commercial  house  are  natives. 
That  they  make  industrious  machines  no  one  can 
deny;  but  they  are  apt  to  be  trying  to  the  temper 
at  times,  and  require  an  extraordinarily  alert 
check  kept  on  their  manoeuvres  and  blunders. 
Once  get  them  outside  their  routine  of  work,  and 
occasion  them  to  draw  on  their  imagination,  and 


Sepia  Surroundings          249 

the  result  is  disastrous.  They  cannot  be  used  for 
correspondence,  for  they  think  on  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent plane  from  that  of  the  European,  and  their 
eccentricities  of  composition  are  phenomenal. 
"Baboo  English,"  as  it  is  called,  is  often  more 
comical  than  Mark  Twain.  It  revels  in  polysyl- 
lables and  lexicographers'  terms;  straightforward 
English  is  a  great  deal  too  simple  for  the  Baboo, 
and  single  syllable  words  are  insufficient  to  show 
off  his  learning.  ' '  So  much  for  your  boasted  Brit- 
ish jurisprudence!  "  was  the  crushing  commentary 
fired  off  by  one  indignant  Baboo  when  an  Eng- 
lishman accidentally  trod  on  his  toes  in  a  crowd. 
A  European  out  shooting  peppered  a  villager  with 
snipe  shot,  and  compensated  him  with  ten  rupees. 
In  order  to  retain  a  written  record  of  the  transac- 
tion, he  ordered  his  clerk  to  obtain  a  receipt  for 
the  money,  and  the  phraseology  the  native  wit  hit 
on  was,  ' '  To  compounding  one  bloody  murder, 
ten  rupees.  Omissions  excep ted."  "  Sir,"  wrote 
another  of  these  clerkly  originalities,  "pray  ex- 
cuse from  office  this  day  on  account  of  boil  on  left 
elbow  as  per  margin, "  and  illustrated  the  tumour, 
to  scale,  on  the  side  of  the  sheet.  Letters  in 
this  style  are  common  in  India,  where  the  sepia 
thinks  the  Englishman  much  better  approached 
by  epistle,  and  hires  scribes  to  write  "  petitions" 
detailing  complaints  or  aspirations.  Tl  •  profes- 
sional letter-writer  is  an  established  and  well- 
patronised  functionary  in  India. 

I  have  no  doubt  the  other  side  of  the  picture, 


250  Indian  Life 

which  shows  the  mistakes  English  folk  make  in 
expressing  themselves  in  the  native  languages, 
can  display  just  as  many  comicalities  if  they  were 
brought  to  notice.  Meem-sahib-bdt,  or  the  ladies' 
rendering  of  the  vernacular  is  notoriously  uncon- 
ventional, and  Tommy  Atkins  speaks  a  lingo  of 
his  own  which  nobody  outside  a  regimental  bazaar 
can  understand.  The  Indian  Charivari,  an  at- 
tempt at  an  Oriental  Punch,  which  has  long  ceased 
to  exist,  enshrined  in  its  pages  many  gems  of 
Anglo-Hindustani.  But  it  is  against  the  code  of 
a  native's  etiquette  to  laugh,  much  less  to  deride, 
and  he  allows  such  lapses  to  pass  without  a  change 
in  his  sober  countenance.  Very  rarely  he  is  un- 
consciously sarcastic,  as  when  a  European  calls 
him  ' '  the  son  of  a  pig ' '  (a  too  common  formula 
of  abuse),  and  he  meekly  rejoins,  "  Your  honour 
is  my  father  and  my  mother!  "  which  is  the  com- 
monest metaphor  of  compliment.  But  hilarity  is 
foreign  to  the  native  character,  and  if  he  is  sur- 
prised into  a  smile  he  will  bend  his  face  and  re- 
lieve himself  of  it  with  a  hand  veiling  his  mouth. 
In  living  amongst  natives,  as  many  Europeans 
have  to  do,  it  is  necessary  to  attune  your  mind  to 
theirs.  India  is  a  land  of  lies,  inhabited  by  peo- 
ples who  express  a  virtuous  indignation  against 
lying.  It  is  also  a  land  of  unconscious  exaggera- 
tion, for  a  native  has  the  poorest  idea  of  assessing 
things  correctly,  and  in  all  information  you  re- 
ceive you  must  make  an  allowance.  If  you  are 
travelling  and  ask  a  wayfarer  how  far  it  is  from 


Sepia  Surroundings          251 

your  destination,  he  will,  in  all  probability,  assure 
you  "  one  kos"  a  distance  that  answers  to  our 
mile,  though  it  sometimes  extends  to  two  and  a 
half.  The  place  may  be  ten  kos  distant,  but  the 
formula  remains  the  same,  and  until  you  begin  to 
fall  into  the  native's  ways  of  thought  and  usage, 
you  will  meet  with  many  bitter  disappointments 
in  trusting  too  implicitly  to  his  word,  and  espe- 
cially his  ideas  of  computation.  In  this  particu- 
lar respect  there  is  no  one  who  can  compete  with 
the  shikari,  or  man  hired  to  show  you  the  haunts 
of  game.  The  roseate  hues  of  early  dawn,  which 
predict  tigers  considerably  over  twelve  feet  from 
nose  to  tip  of  tail,  blackbuck  with  thirty-inch 
horns,  and  snipe  like  locusts,  if  credited,  fade  into 
grey  chagrin  later  in  the  day.  It  is  not  so  much 
lying  in  many  cases  as  an  inability  to  speak  the 
truth;  in  other  words,  the  speaker  tells  you  what 
he  thinks  is  the  case,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  he 
is  depicting  what  he  wishes  it  may  be.  He  does 
it  not  unkindly,  if  you  could  only  appreciate  his 
line  of  reasoning.  ' '  What  was  the  size  of  the 
wild-boar  ?  ' '  you  ask  of  one  who  has  come  in  with 
news  of  pig.  "  That  size,"  is  the  reply,  the  hori- 
zontal hand  indicating  the  altitude  of  a  full-grown 
donkey.  If  you  bid  the  man  reflect  and  indicate 
again,  he  will,  as  likely  as  not,  increase  the 
height. 

Sepia  surroundings  sometimes  bring  serious 
nuisances  with  them.  In  the  most  fashionable 
part  of  Bombay  is  situated  the  Hindu  burning- 


252  Indian  Life 

ground,  whereof  ladies  returning  from  the  band- 
stand often  have  olfactory  proofs.  Conceive  the 
scandal  it  would  occasion  in  England  if  one  of 
the  principal  thoroughfares  were  tainted  with  the 
smell  of  roasting  human  flesh!  In  the  capital  of 
Western  India,  you  sniff  suspiciously,  shudder  out 
an  "Ugh!"  cram  your  pocket-handkerchief  to 
your  nose,  and  there  is  an  end  of  it.  It  is  a  cus- 
tom of  the  country.  Then,  again,  the  native 
contaminates  water  with  a  most  disgusting  un- 
concern, washing  himself  in  the  tank  from  which 
you  may  be  obliged  to  draw  your  drinking  supply, 
and  defiling  it  in  sundry  ways.  I  have  alluded  to 
the  native's  scantiness  of  attire;  it  is  certainly 
something  to  shock,  and  a  man  taking  his  bath  in 
public,  with  nothing  on  him  but  an  exceedingly 
diminutive  loin-cloth,  is  a  common  wayside  spec- 
tacle. In  parts  of  Southern  India,  the  women  are 
uudraped  from  the  waist  upwards,  the  survival  of 
an  old  custom  which  decreed  it  as  an  incentive  to 
matrimony.  All  along  the  seaboard,  you  may  put 
it  that  the  female  costume  transgresses  the  laws 
of  Occidental  decency.  Many  of  the  lepers  and 
beggars  whom  you  see  infesting  the  public  high- 
ways are  such  loathsome  sights  that  they  would 
not  be  permitted  abroad  in  civilised  communities  ; 
and  the  cruelty  to  animals  habitually  practised  in 
overworking  them  is  a  constant  disgrace.  Bul- 
locks whose  tails  have  practically  been  twisted 
off  are  exceedingly  common,  and  the  saddle  sores 
and  girth  galls  of  horses  and  mules  employed  as 


Sepia  Surroundings          253 

pack  animals,  or  in  wheeled  vehicles,  make  you 
shudder. 

Minor  nuisances  are  many.  Nothing  is  more 
distracting  to  the  nerves  than  the  tom-toming  that 
goes  on  all  through  the  night  when  marriages  or 
other  festivals  are  in  progress.  What  are  the  in- 
termittent concerts  of  tom-cats  on  the  tiles  to  the 
prolonged  and  maddening  monotony  of  a  single 
dull  note  repeated  at  short  intervals,  making  night 
hideous?  Then  there  are  native  caste  prejudices 
which  create  inconvenience.  In  some  Hindu  dis- 
tricts, where  the  slaughter  of  kine  is  prohibited, 
it  is  impossible  to  get  beef.  For  nearly  twenty 
years,  off  and  on,  I  never  tasted  it  between  Feb- 
ruary and  October,  and  have  sent  seventy  miles 
for  a  Christmas  sirloin,  and  had  it  brought  up  by 
men  on  foot,  relieving  each  other  in  relays.  A 
mere  trifle,  you  may  think;  but  it  becomes  a 
little  trying  when  you  live  on  a  diet  of  mutton 
and  fowl  every  day  for  many  months.  Pork  flesh, 
be  it  ham  or  bacon,  you  know  to  be  unclean  to 
your  Mahomedan  servants,  and  eat  it  "  with  all 
risks,"  as  the  auctioneers  say.  Under  the  same 
category,  curiously  enough,  comes  turkey,  ac- 
counted a  relation  of  the  pig  by  the  followers  of 
the  Prophet,  because  it  carries  a  little  rosette  of 
bristles  on  its  breast,  though  this  may  be  news  to 
the  general. 

In  another  part  of  these  pages,  I  have  mentioned 
the  system  of  dcilis,  or  complimentary  offerings. 
At  Christmas  these  assume  the  form  of  an  epi- 


254  Indian  Life 

demic.  Here  the  sepia  has  you  on  hip  and  thigh, 
for  the  system  of  the  Christmas-box  brings  East 
and  West  into  line  at  once.  It  is  a  moot  question 
whether  the  word ' '  box' '  may  not  be  derived  from 
bucksheesh,  often  abbreviated  into  "bux"  in  the 
colloquial.  In  India,  the  Christmas-box  is  a  re- 
ciprocal function;  all  your  servants  and  hangers- 
on  and  understrappers  seize  the  opportunity  to 
present  you  with  a  dali,  which  you  cannot  very 
well  decline.  And,  of  course,  when  a  native  tips 
you,  you  must  tip  him  back,  and  return  nothing 
less  respectable  than  silver  for  his  copper.  The 
dali,  with  its  little  heap  of  sugar  candy  and  rice, 
flowers  and  fruit,  costs  but  a  few  pence  at  the  ut- 
most, and  the  procession  of  these  gifts  only  finds 
a  termination  in  the  number  of  those  who  conceive 
that  now  *s  the  time  to  make  a  good  investment. 
They  come  and  come,  and,  with  a  sickly  smile  and 
sullen  eye,  you  salaam  and  submit  3rourself  to  the 
craftily  disguised  blackmail  of  Christmas  buck- 
sheesh,  inwardly  cursing  the  accumulation  of  sour 
oranges,  and  the  ascending  pile  of  sugar-candy, 
and  the  hillock  of  rice  as  it  expands  into  a  young 
mountain,  and  consigning  Christmas  customs  to 
the  same  inferno  to  which  you  habitually  consign 
native  ones. 

Consign  them,  and  yet  too  often  accommodate 
yourself  to  them !  Things  which  you  know  to  be 
constructively  wrong  you  acquiesce  in,  and  con- 
done methods  which  are  obsolete  fetishes.  Take 
the  Indian  ayah,  or  lady's-maid;  she  is  in  nine 


Sepia  Surroundings          255 

cases  out  of  ten  of  the  scavenger  caste!  No 
fastidious  Englishman  will  touch  a  sweeper  or 
scavenger,  and  yet  he  allows  his  wife  to  be  waited 
on  by  a  woman  of  the  same  low  breed.  You  can 
hardly  believe  it,  but  it  is  the  "  custom,"  and  the 
husband  is  often  valeted  by  a  high-caste  Brahmin 
or  Rajpoot  who  would  decline  to  tread  on  the  same 
carpet  as  the  ayah!  Of  all  the  anomalies  and 
topsy-turvies  of  Anglo-Indian  domestic  economy, 
this  has  always  struck  me  as  the  most  remarkable 
in  its  surrender  to  caste  prejudice  and  sexual  in- 
feriority. Look  at  your  horse,  hobbled  by  the 
hind  leg  as  well  as  haltered;  that  is  a  custom  of 
the  country  which  many  people  in  England 
would  denounce  as  cruel.  But  you  will  find  it 
adopted  in  most  Indian  stables,  because  it  has 
been  handed  down  by  the  forefathers  of  your 
groom  as  the  proper  way  to  secure  a  horse.  Ob- 
serve the  domestic  utensils  in  common  use  in  an 
Anglo-Indian's  house;  the  gurrah,  which  {pace 
Sir  George  Birdwood)  is  like  a  wobbling  football 
filled  with  water,  is  permitted  to  survive  when  a 
water-can  would  be  infinitely  more  convenient  to 
fill  your  bath  with.  And  those  copper  cooking- 
pots,  which  can  so  easily  become  poisonous,  re- 
main in  use  because  your  cook  prefers  them!  Can 
any  one  conceive  a  more  clumsy  device  than  the 
punkah  for  creating  an  artificial  draught,  with 
two  coolies  permanently  attached  to  it  ?  And  yet 
we  are  only  just  beginning  in  the  centres  of  civil- 
isation to  adopt  electric  fans  and  other  substitutes 


256  Indian  Life 

suggested  by  Western  ingenuity.  The  British 
have  occupied  India  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
and  have  left  the  building  of  their  houses  to  the 
native  architect,  whose  ideas  have  not  changed 
since  the  times  of  Clive  and  Warren  Hastings. 
The  Indian  bungalow  is  a  century  behind  the  age, 
but  it  is  fashioned  according  to  a  hoary  old  cus- 
tom, and  we  remain  content  with  it.  I  know  only 
one  house  in  India  designed  on  an  English  model, 
but  with  the  addition  of  verandahs;  it  was  called 
the  "  Folly."  I  must  myself  plead  guilty  to  hav- 
ing built  three  bungalows,  all  on  native  lines,  and 
I  cannot  explain  why,  except  that  it  was  the  cus- 
tom. Even  in  this  age  of  cheap  Swedish  and 
Japanese  matches,  if  you  call  for  a  light  for  your 
cheroot  in  Bombay,  you  will  be  supplied  with  a 
piece  of  glowing  charcoal  between  a  pair  of  tongs, 
because  that  is  the  method  adopted  in  lighting 
the  native  hookah.  The  palanquin,  carried  by 
native  bearers,  still  survives  in  the  metropolitan 
cities,  although  it  is  as  antiquated  as  the  sedan 
chair,  and  more  awkward  to  get  out  of  than  a 
social  scrape.  Yet  a  pious  custom  helps  it  to 
linger  on  in  an  age  of  motor-cars!  But  I  could  go 
on  indefinitely  multiplying  these  immutable  mys- 
teries of  Asia  that  link  us  with  the  Georgian 
period  in  the  economy  of  daily  life;  these  tinder- 
boxes  and  elastic-side  boots,  as  it  were,  used  and 
worn  under  the  dominion  of  the  Emperor  Edward 
the  Seventh!  And  side  by  side  with  them,  you 
have  the  intensely  Western  spectacle  of  a  Hindu 


Sepia  Surroundings          257 

running  to  catch  a  suburban  train,  or  a  Mahom- 
edan  reporting  the  tramway  conductor  because  he 
omitted  to  punch  the  penny-fare  ticket! 

The  moral  influence  of  sepia  surroundings  on 
the  life  of  an  Anglo-Indian  is  another  matter 
altogether,  and  of  this  I  have  left  myself  little 
space  to  write.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  atmos- 
phere puts  a  man's  character  to  the  test;  some 
come  out  of  it  well,  some  uncommonly  badly. 
The  Anglo- Indian,  be  he  ever  so  humble,  finds 
many  humbler  beings  to  bow  before  him.  The 
loafer  on  the  highway  has  no  need  to  shoulder 
the  black  man  off  his  path,  who  voluntarily  makes 
way  for  him.  As  you  ascend  in  the  social  scale, 
this  servility  increases,  and  the  sepia  is  ever  meta- 
phorically grovelling  in  the  dust  to  the  white 
complexion.  It  is  not  a  wholesome  atmosphere 
to  live  in,  this  conscious  sense  of  social  superior- 
ity, and  is  apt  in  some  cases  to  turn  heads.  The 
Anglo-Indian  becomes  arrogant,  quick-tempered, 
and  impatient.  He  loses  the  knack  of  saying 
"  Thank  you,"  and  acquires  that  of  bahaduring, 
which  is  the  importation  of  imperialism  into 
private  life.  He  is  always  ' '  My  lord' '  or  "  Your 
honour  "  to  the  native,  or,  for  a  variation,  "  Pro- 
tector of  the  poor!  "  or  "Cherisher  of  the  needy!  " 
Do  you  wonder  that  the  Anglo-Indian  becomes 
puffed-up  ?  That  he  thinks  more  of  himself  than 
is  compatible  with  his  gifts  and  attributes  ?  That 
he  becomes  curt  in  his  treatment  of  the  sepia  ? 
Such  is  not  unfrequently  the  case,  and  an  undue 


258 


Indian  Life 


exploitation  of  ' '  side  "  is  a  weak  point  in  the 
Anglo-Indian's  character.  A  six-months'  fur- 
lough to  the  Colonies  of  Australia  should  be  in- 
cluded in  the  curriculum  of  his  life  to  negative  the 
ill-effects  of  sepia  surroundings  and  sepia  servility. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   GLAD  CRY 

WHAT  are  the  pros  and  what  the  cons  of 
Anglo-Indian  life,  and  to  which  side  does 
the  balance  incline?  I  think  I  can  strike  it  at 
once  in  the  words  of  the  familiar  song,  Home, 
Sweet  Home.  But  there  are  two  good  columns  of 
debtor  and  creditor  considerations  on  either  side 
before  we  arrive  at  it,  and  to  some  of  these  I  will 
address  myself. 

The  Anglo- Indian  does  not  take  his  pleasures 
sadly,  and,  speaking  generally,  manages  to  have 
a  good  time  of  it  during  his  period  of  exile. 
There  is  no  place  like  India  for  gaiety  and  amuse- 
ment, and  no  society  which  lays  itself  out  more 
thoroughly  for  enjoyment.  Within  the  short 
limits  of  the  cooler  evening  hours,  a  vast  amount 
of  outdoor  revelry  is  squeezed  in.  I  do  not  speak 
of  the  cities,  where  there  are  large  communities 
and  amusement  is  conducted  on  a  colossal  scale, 
but  of  the  petty  out-stations  which,  weather  per- 
mitting, become  the  headquarters  of  enjoyment, 
and  in  this  respect  contrast  favourably  with  the 
dulness  of  life  in  English  rural  towns  and  villages. 
359 


260  Indian  Life 

In  fact,  they  compare  rather  with  those  places  in 
England  which  are  called  pleasure  resorts.  The 
reason  is  not  far  to  seek;  there  is  little  of  the 
English  stiffness  in  Anglo-Indian  society;  every- 
body knows  everybody  else;  and  the  hours  of 
recreation  are  of  necessity  the  same  for  all.  More- 
over, it  often  happens  that  there  is  only  one  meet- 
ing-place where  the  Europeans  foregather  with 
regularity  and  punctuality.  These  conditions 
bring  people  together,  and  having  grouped  them- 
selves, they  proceed  to  make  the  most  of  it.  A 
similar  system  in  England,  that  assembled  ac- 
quaintances at  a  stated  hour  and  for  a  stated  time 
every  day,  would  probably  show  the  same  results. 

Then  hospitality  is  universal  in  India,  and  din- 
ner parties,  dances,  balls,  private  theatricals,  and 
evening  entertainments  are  far  commoner  than  in 
England.  This,  again,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at, 
for  you  have  servants  to  do  everything  for  you. 
The  commissariat  is  a  simple  affair  relegated  to 
your  major-domo,  and  a  Cinderella  dance  or 
garden-party  comes  within  the  means  of  many. 
Nor  should  I  forget  to  mention  that  the  race- 
course, the  polo  ground,  the  cricket  pitch,  and  the 
tennis  courts  cost  practically  nothing  for  their  use, 
being  Government  lands  allotted  to  every  station 
for  the  benefit  of  the  European  community.  In 
short,  amusement  is  made  easy  in  India,  and  the 
expense  of  a  trifling  subscription  will  make  you 
free  of  everything. 

Nor  is  India  without  its  pleasure  resorts,  where 


The  Glad  Cry  261 

the  fun  is  fast  and  furious.  The  Hill  Stations  in 
the  hot  weather  are  places  where  little  else  but 
gaiety  and  amusement  is  talked  of  or  indulged  in. 
Here  are  gathered  together  the  fair  sex,  who  can- 
not stand  the  heat  of  the  baking  plains,  and  hither 
flock  men  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  "  on  leave" 
from  their  several  duties.  English  novel  readers 
know  a  good  deal  about  Indian  Hill  Stations, 
which  form  the  background  of  so  much  fiction; 
but  apart  from  this  not  very  wholesome  atmos- 
phere of  flirtation  and  intrigue  there  is  much  that 
is  harmless  and  happy.  I  do  not  know  any  sense 
of  relief  and  delight  greater  than  that  of  breath- 
ing in  the  mountain  air  after  a  long  spell  of  the 
stifling  heat  below,  or  any  scene  more  grateful  to 
the  eyes  than  the  verdure  of  the  hills  and  the  pan- 
orama of  distant  snows  after  the  drab  monotony 
of  the  dusty  plains.  It  is  better  than  the  sea  to 
a  Londoner,  the  Highlands  to  a  Glasgow  man. 
For  it  means  something  more  than  health;  it 
brings  a  certain  rejuvenisation  of  physical  and 
mental  energy.  The  cool  wind  soughing  through 
the  firs,  the  nights  that  require  a  blanket,  the 
days  that  can  be  enjoyed  out-of-doors  instead  of 
only  survived  under  a  punkah — these  are  things 
that  make  a  run  up  to  the  hills  the  greatest  treat 
of  Anglo-Indian  life. 

Ladies  find  a  compensation  for  their  lonely  In- 
dian days  in  the  gaiety  of  the  evening  hours. 
Although  they  are  no  longer  all  reckoned  prin- 
cesses, as  was  the  case  in  the  good  old  times,  and 


262  Indian  Life 

may  not  always  be  able  to  fill  their  ball  pro- 
grammes, they  have  little  cause  to  complain.  For 
Anglo-India  is  very  attentive  to  its  womankind, 
and  ladies  are  admitted  to  not  a  few  of  its  clubs. 
And  although  the  girl  who  goes  out  to  find  a  hus- 
band may  not  be  so  uniformly  successful  as  were 
her  foremothers  thirty  years  ago,  I  fancy  there 
are  few  "  spins  " — if  they  are  still  "  spins  " — who 
look  back  to  the  life  they  spent  in  India  without 
pleasurable  feelings,  even  should  the  campaign 
have  been  a  failure  from  a  matrimonial  point  of 
view. 

To  the  man  who  loves  hunting,  riding,  and 
shooting,  India  is  an  ideal  land.  What  are  lux- 
uries confined  to  the  rich  in  England  become 
every  one's  property  in  the  East.  For  myself,  I 
always  associate  sport  with  my  pleasantest  recol- 
lections of  exile.  No  holidays  since  those  of  one's 
schooldays  can  compare  to  the  Christmas  week, 
or  fortnight,  spent  in  camp,  shooting  and  riding. 
I  can  call  to  mind  many  such,  when  with  four  or 
five  genial  companions  we  cut  ourselves  adrift 
from  railways  and  roads,  and  lived  the  gipsy  life. 
Dear  are  the  memories  of  the  snug  tents  pitched 
under  the  shady  mango  topes;  the  morning  gallop 
and  the  midday  sport;  the  evening  stroll  with  a 
shotgun;  the  dinner  partaken  under  a  green  can- 
opy, with  the  camp-fire  roaring  and  brightening 
up  the  scene,  and  the  chairs  drawn  around  it 
presently  for  sing-songs  or  discussions  of  the 
varied  adventures  of  the  day. 


The  Glad  Cry  263 

Another  advantage  of  Anglo-Indian  life  is  that 
money  goes  further  and  provides  more  in  certain 
directions.  People  naturally  go  to  India  to  im- 
prove their  circumstances,  and  you  may  say,  in  a 
general  way,  every  one  is  better  off  than  he  would 
have  been  in  England.  Even  the  man  on  small 
means  can  get  a  vast  amount  of  pleasure  and  com- 
fort out  of  his  income,  and  there  is  but  little  of  that 
struggle  which  we  associate  with  genteel  poverty. 
Taken  all  round,  the  Anglo-Indian  is  a  well-to-do 
individual,  and  if  his  ship  is  not  sailing  smoothly, 
it  is  mostly  his  own  fault.  The  scale  of  salaries 
is  arranged  on  a  far  more  liberal  basis  than  in 
England,  and  "dreadfully  poor"  folk  are  only 
so  in  comparison  with  the  dreadfully  rich  ones. 

And,  to  most  people,  the  object  attainable  is 
satisfactory.  The  civilian  has  opportunities  of 
great  distinction  open  to  him,  and  more  rewards 
and  decorations  than  in  any  other  civil  service 
under  the  Crown.  The  soldier  sees  plenty  of 
camp-life,  and  the  fortunate  one  a  full  share  of 
fighting,  and  is  not  the  poor  man,  financially 
speaking,  he  remains  in  other  outposts  of  the 
Empire.  The  merchant  has  a  prospect  of  a  quick 
fortune,  and  professional  men — doctors,  barristers, 
dentists,  and  experts  generally — make  a  larger  in- 
come than  they  would  in  England.  Mechanics 
enjoy  handsome  wages,  and  "poor  whites"  are 
rare,  and  chiefly  confined  to  the  loafing  class, 
whose  misfortunes  you  may  trace  to  intemperance. 
The  missionary  lives  a  far  from  arduous  life,  and 


264  Indian  Life 

the  chaplain  is  the  best  paid  clergyman  in  the 
church,  with  a  pension  of  a  pound  a  day  after  a 
comparatively  short  term  of  service.  For  his 
cloth,  indeed,  there  is  nobody  better  off  than  the 
Anglo-Indian  "padre."  And  you  may  say  of 
the  Anglo-Indian  generally,  he  is  a  prosperous 
man,  and  judge  it  by  the  way  he  grumbles  when 
he  returns  to  England,  and  misses  all  the  luxuries 
of  Indian  life. 

The  climate  is,  of  course,  the  great  drawback, 
and  yet  sometimes  when  I  get  climate-cursed  in 
England  I  think  not  unkindly  of  the  hottest  days 
I  ever  spent  in  India.  The  skies  were  blue,  at 
least,  and  when  it  did  rain  it  rained  to  some  pur- 
pose. Englishmen  grumble  under  any  circum- 
stances, and  do  so  with  undeviating  regularity 
against  the  heat  of  the  East;  and  yet,  I  think,  not 
so  much  as  at  the  perverse  variability  and  cos- 
mopolitan detestability  of  English  meteorological 
conditions.  For  when  the  weather  is  a  fixed 
equation  you  can  circumvent  it,  and  do  in  a  meas- 
ure, in  India;  but  when  it  shifts  and  changes,  as 
it  does  in  England,  you  can  in  practice  do  nothing 
but  swear  at  it.  And  put  east  wind  and  London 
fog  against  hot  winds  and  monsoon  vapour,  and 
I  honestly  prefer  the  latter. 

As  regards  the  quality  and  strenuousness  of 
work,  the  Englishman  cannot,  does  not,  and  is 
not  called  upon  to  do  as  much  in  India  as  at 
home.  In  commercial  life,  the  office  hours  are 
from  ten  to  five;  but  there  are  many  more  holi- 


The  Glad  Cry  265 

days  than  in  England.  In  a  country  where  there 
are  three  creeds,  each  with  its  festivals  to  be  ob- 
served, there  are  three  sets  of  holidays,  and  the 
Doorga  Poojahs  supply  a  week  straight  off  the 
reel.  In  Government  employ,  Sundays  and  festi- 
vals account  for  almost  a  third  of  the  year.  Then, 
again,  you  seldom  see  the  Anglo-Indian  bustling. 
If  you  go  into  a  shop  or  office  in  the  larger  cities, 
there  is  a  distinctly  placid  air,  which  argues  no 
high  amount  of  pressure.  The  tiffin  hour  is  an 
oasis  that  occupies  a  big  slice  in  the  day,  and  I 
have  known  business  men  nap  in  their  chairs, 
under  the  drowsy  influence  of  the  punkah.  An- 
other point  to  be  remembered  is  that  nearly  all  the 
uninteresting  clerical  work  in  India  is  done  by 
native  clerks.  It  is  true  the  civilian  is  rather  sur- 
feited with  writing  reports,  and  I  have  heard  dig- 
nitaries of  the  administration,  with  inky  fingers, 
swearing  at  the  bureaucratic  head  centre  for  its 
appetite  for  unnecessary  details.  But  over  his 
more  practical  duties  the  same  high  functionary 
may  often  be  observed  with  a  cheroot  or  cigarette 
in  his  mouth.  In  fact,  nearly  all  Europeans 
smoke  in  their  offices,  and  this  habit  faithfully 
reflects  what  I  may  call  the  sauntering  ease  of 
Eastern  life.  Military  men  are  notoriously  unem- 
ployed during  the  hot  weather  months,  and  the 
enforced  idleness  of  barrack  bounds  is  the  greatest 
curse  of  Tommy  Atkins's  Indian  career.  The 
artisan  classes  are  by  no  means  driven,  except  on 
the  railway,  and  there  is  a  decided  "  considera- 


266  Indian  Life 

tion "  shown  to  everybody  which  allows  the 
Anglo- Indian  a  great  deal  of  latitude,  not  to  say 
lassitude,  in  the  execution  of  his  duties.  More- 
over, there  is  the  ever-present  native  to  serve  him 
and  be  at  his  beck  and  call.  Sepia  surroundings 
are  often  a  nuisance,  but  on  occasions  mightily 
convenient.  Sometimes,  when  I  look  at  the 
kitchen-midden  heap  that  constitutes  my  writing- 
table  in  this  land  of  civilisation,  I  sigh  for  my 
duftri,  who  used  to  tidy  my  desk  twice  daily  in 
India,  wipe  my  pens,  fill  my  inkpots,  set  me  out 
a  new  sheet  of  blotting-paper  every  day,  array  my 
writing-paper  and  envelopes,  copy  my  letters  in 
the  press,  fold  and  enclose  them  in  their  covers, 
and  finally  weigh  and  stamp  each!  Not  to  men- 
tion altering  the  date-rack,  killing  flies,  abusing 
the  punkah-wallah  when  he  failed  to  create  a 
strong  draught,  preparing  a  "  peg,"  advising  me 
of  the  time,  acting  as  a  notebook  to  remind  me  of 
things  to  be  done,  and,  so  far  as  my  personal 
comfort  went,  thinking  for  me  when  I  was  too 
lazy  to  think  for  myself! 

Occupation  for  occupation  I  would  sooner  be  a 
Kuropean  working  in  India  than  in  England,  and 
to  sum  the  matter  up  generally  I  should  call  In- 
dian life,  in  its  working  aspect,  a  "jolly  easy 
one,"  with  many  compensations  to  make  up  for 
local  drawbacks  of  climate. 

Having  thus  sketched  in  broadest  outline  the 
advantages  of  the  Indian  life,  a  few  words  must 
be  devoted  to  its  disadvantages,  without  necessity 


The  Glad  Cry  267 

to  refer  again  to  the  climate  except  to  point  out 
the  lassitude  to  which  it  gives  rise,  and  the  disincli- 
nation for  work  which  .it  engenders.  I  know  few 
things  more  trying  than  the  obligation  to  carry 
out  duties  when  all  energy  is  gone,  and  the  task 
that  under  ordinary  circumstances  would  yield 
satisfaction,  if  not  pleasure,  in  its  accomplish- 
ment, becomes  an  effort  of  compulsion  very  like 
slavery.  Lassitude  is  not  necessarily  laziness;  it 
is  a  running  down  of  the  system,  a  condition  of 
mind  and  body  for  which  the  man  who  suffers 
from  it  cannot  be  blamed.  It  incapacitates,  and 
makes  work  a  "grind."  As  a  rule,  I  think 
Anglo-India  grinds  a  great  deal  at  its  work. 
There  are  weeks  and  months  when  the  Anglo- 
Indian  does  not  enjoy  the  happiness  of  a  mens 
sana  in  corpore  sano,  which  is  so  essential  to  the 
proper  conduct  of  the  affairs  of  life.  A  man  suf- 
fering from  a  chronic  headache  or  permanent 
lumbago  is  not  the  individual  to  solve  acrostics  or 
dig  the  garden;  the  disabilities  of  lassitude  are, 
in  their  way,  just  as  great,  and  it  requires  the 
exercise  of  no  common  amount  of  will-power  to 
"buckle-to,"  when  all  the  starch  has  been  melted 
out  of  the  system,  and  mind  and  body  are  in  a 
limp,  negative  state. 

Partly  arising  from  climate,  partly  from  circum- 
stances, comes  the  question  of  health.  Ill-health 
is  one  of  the  drawbacks  of  life  in  the  East.  The 
liver  is  a  permanent  misery,  and  many  other  ills 
to  which  man's  flesh  is  heir  follow  close  on  its 


268  Indian  Life 

heels.  A  great  number  of  Anglo-Indians  suffer 
from  chronic  complaints  who  would  assuredly 
have  escaped  their  afflictions  in  England.  It  is 
a  trite  observation  to  say  that  good  health  is  the 
greatest  of  all  blessings,  and  yet  it  is  not  until  you 
begin  to  have  experience  of  sickness  that  this 
elementary  truth  is  realised.  In  a  planting  life  in 
the  jungles,  it  is  especially  trying.  In  the  district 
wherein  I  lived,  I  remember  over  a  dozen  Euro- 
peans dying  without  medical  aid,  and  in  not  a  few 
cases  from  preventable  causes.  Three  succumbed 
to  cholera,  and  were  dead  before  the  doctor,  who 
lived  over  twenty  miles  away,  could  gallop  in. 
It  is  dreadful  to  think  of  life  so  needlessly  squan- 
dered, and  when  the  bitterness  is  brought  home 
to  you  by  seeing  your  own  friends  passing  away, 
and  yourself  unable  to  help  them,  it  is  hard  to 
bear.  Moreover,  the  funeral  has  to  follow  death 
so  immediately  in  the  East  that  it  hardly  seems 
decent.  You  may  be  called  on  to  bury  a  man 
with  whom  you  were  lunching  the  day  before, 
and  experiences  like  these  score  a  deep  mark  in 
the  recollection.  But  the  saddest  memory  of  all 
is  the  Indian  cemetery,  with  its  crowded,  uncouth, 
masonry  monuments,  and  its  general  air  of  deso- 
lation and  abandonment.  In  India,  the  dead  are 
not  treated  well,  and  it  is  one  of  the  disgraces  of 
British  administration.  In  the  humblest  English 
village  churchyards  you  will  see  more  respect  and 
attention  paid  to  the  resting-places  of  the  departed 
than  is  paid  to  the  tombs  of  many  of  the  heroes 


The  Glad  Cry  269 

who  helped  to  win  India  for  Great  Britain.  Indian 
cemeteries  are  hideous  with  neglect,  and  in  some 
of  the  out-of-the-way,  up-country  stations  are 
even  given  over  to  the  j  ungle  and  wild  beasts. 

However,  this  has  little  to  do  with  life  in  India. 
We  are  talking  of  its  drawbacks,  and  chief 
amongst  these  must  be  placed  the  perennial  part- 
ings between  husbands  and  wives,  parents  and 
children.  In  England,  man  and  wife  hardly  know 
what  it  is  to  dwell  apart;  in  India,  it  is  a  common 
condition  of  matrimonial  life  ior  four  mouths  in 
the  year,  when  wives  have  to  be  sent  up  to  the 
Hill  Stations.  But  this,  again,  is  a  far  less  un- 
happy state  of  affairs  than  that  other  alternative 
of  sending  wife  and  family  home  to  England. 
The  sorrow  of  separation  from  all  he  holds  most 
dear  hangs  over  the  Anglo-Indian,  and  makes 
his  life  one  clouded  with  constant  and  prolonged 
partings.  And  I  think  it  is  from  this  phase  of  it 
that  India  has  been  called  the  Land  of  Regrets. 

But  there  is  another  species  of  separation  I 
must  mention,  and  that  is  the  exclusion  from 
civilisation  which  a  life  in  the  jungles  entails.  In 
the  selection  of  his  career,  the  Anglo-Indian  cuts 
himself  off  from  much  that  goes  to  elevate  life  in 
the  West.  He  is  out  of  touch  with  art  and 
literature,  and  seldom  keeps  up  with  the  tide  in 
politics  and  graver  thought.  It  is  only  when  he 
returns  and  tries  to  pick  up  the  threads  of  Eng- 
lish life  again  that  he  realises  how  far  he  has 
fallen  behind  the  times.  I  am  not  speaking  of 


270  Indian  Life 

those  whose  good  fortune  it  is  to  be  able  to  run 
home  for  a  trip  every  two  or  three  years,  and  so 
polish  themselves  up,  but  of  the  less  happily  situ- 
ated, who  do  their  six  and  seven,  and  even  more, 
years  in  the  country  without  a  change.  I  did 
nine  years  once  on  a  stretch,  and  confess  to  an 
utterly  "lost"  feeling  when  I  first  returned  to 
England.  For  one  gets,  in  the  phrase  of  the 
East,  "jungly,"  and  that  is  far  worse  than  ordi- 
nary provincialism.  And  then,  again,  after  these 
prolonged  absences  there  are  so  many  changes  in 
others  as  well  as  in  yourself.  Not  till  you  return 
"  home  "  and  visit  your  old  haunts  and  old  friends 
do  you  realise  how  many  faces  are  missing,  and 
that  those  partings  on  the  outward-bound  steamer, 
when  you  were  so  full  of  excitement  and  anticipa- 
tion of  your  new  life,  in  the  Golden  East,  had  in 
them  the  finality  of  death-bed  partings.  Nor  is 
it  only  faces  that  change;  friends  change,  old 
familiar  landmarks  change,  and  feelings  change. 
There  is  often  a  grievous  disappointment  in  store 
for  the  returned  Anglo-Indian,  and  I  have  fre- 
quently heard  him  sigh,  "  Home  is  not  home!  " 

And  that  is  a  sad  note  to  strike,  for,  as  I  began 
by  saying,  the  Anglo-Indian's  dearest  word  is 
"  Home."  To  our  cousins  in  the  Colonies,  the 
land  they  live  in  is  home,  and  England  only  "  the 
old  country";  but  to  the  Anglo-Indian,  India  is 
never  anything  but  a  place  of  exile,  and  when  he 
returns  to  the  scenes  so  fondly  remembered,  only 
to  find  that  he  has  been  forgotten,  and  to  feel 


The  Glad  Cry  271 

himself — as  so  many  have  done — a  stranger  in  a 
strange  land:  well,  you  may  score  that  down  as 
a  big  debit  item  in  the  pros  and  cons  columns  we 
are  considering!  And  I  think  I  may  say  that 
home-sickness  is  the  commonest  complaint  in 
India,  cheerfully  borne  in  the  general,  but  always 
twinging.  In  the  monotony  of  life,  and  its  lone- 
liness and  lassitude,  the  thoughts  fly  back  to 
England  with  a  feeling  Mr.  Kipling  has  finely 
described  in  one  of  his  earlier  poems: 

"  Give  me  back  one  day  in  England,  for  it 's  Spring  In 
England  now ! " 

I  do  not  doubt  that  there  come  many  seasons 
when  the  Anglo-Indian  would  willingly  barter  a 
month  of  his  life  for  a  single  day  in  England. 
There  is  an  overpowering  sadness  which  steals 
over  a  man  at  times,  and  the  exile  casts  his  eyes 
over  his  surroundings,  and  ponders  upon  the 
vicissitudes  of  life  and  health  and  the  spirit  of  the 
Land  of  Regrets  enters  into  his  soul! 

And  I  think  it  is  here  you  must  strike  your  bal- 
ance between  the  pros  and  cons  of  Anglo-Indian 
life.  You  will  find  no  difficulty  in  arriving  at  a 
conclusion.  Ask  the  Anglo-Indian  at  any  period 
of  his  career  what  he  would  most  like,  and  he  will 
answer  you,  "  To  be  going  home."  That  is  the 
glad  cry  of  the  East — going  home!  And  its  glad- 
ness is  the  best  commentary  on  Anglo-Indian  life! 


INDEX 

ABUSE,  Hindustani,  77 
Administration,  Indian,  68 
Amusements,  European,  236,  260 

,  native,  145,  149 

Anglo-Indian  life,  183 

Animal  life,  223 

Artisan  class,  55 

Assam,  the  money-lender  in,  167 

Astrologers,  88 

Ayahs,  254 

BABOO,  the  Bengali,  249 

Bachelors,  Anglo-Indian,  214,  219 

Bahadurism,  257 

Bands,  German,  91 

Barbers,  native,  87 

Beauty,  female,  151 

Beggars,  95 

Bhang,  effects  of,  162 

Bird  life,  223 

Birdwood,  Sir  George,  55,  90 

Bombay,  industries  of,  178 

Brahmins,  18,  125,  131 

,  English,  199 

Bribery  and  corruption,  69 
British  territory,  divisions  of,  13 
Buddhism,  14 

18 

273 


274  Index 

Bungalow  life,  212 

Bungalows,  Indian,  195,  212,  255 

Bureaucracy,  201 

Burmah,  6 

Burmese,  the,  43 

"C.  B.,"  the,  197 
Camping  life,  227,  231,  262 
Canning,  Lord,  118 
Carriers,  Indian,  57 
Cashmere,  6 
Caste,  17,  40,  44,  132,  166 

,  Anglo-Indian,  199 

Child-marriage,  113,  119 

Chupprassi,  the,  68,  76,  246 

City  life,  138 

Civilian's,  Indian,  199 

Civil  service,  199,  263 

Climate,  7,  184,  263 

Coal,  178 

Cold  weather,  the,  228 

Congress-wallah,  the,  174 

Consent,  age  of,  118 

Conservatism  of  Hindus,  47 

Consumption,  prevalence  in  zenana,  104 

Contentedness  of  natives,  153 

Country,  197 

Country-bred,  190,  197 

Cremation,  92 

Crime,  162 

Currency,  162 

Custom,  44,  79 

Customs,  36,  48,  132 

DAK-BUNGALOWS,  188 
D&k-gharries,  188 


Index  275 


Ddlals,  79 

D&lis,  71,  253 

Dancing-girls,  90 

Death,  93 

Debt,  165 

Dhoolie-trewelling,  188 

Districts,  Indian,  68 

Doctors,  native,  93 

Dravidians,  5 

Drawbacks  of  Indian  life,  265 

Dress,  Anglo-Indian,  190 

,  of  women,  134,  152 

Drinking,  194 
Dustoorie,  72,  75 

EAST,  the  Golden,  155 
Education,  171 

Employment,  Government,  79 
English  officials,  68 
Entertainers,  90 
Eurasians,  208 
Europeanised  natives,  173 
"  Europe  shops,"  190 
Exchange,  fixity  of,  179 
Exclusiveness  of  the  natives,  16 
Exile,  lyand  of,  183 

FAIRS,  Indian,  150 

Famine,  157 

Favouritism,  78 

Fever,  158 

Fireworks,  153 

Fishing,  native  fondness  for,  133 

Food,  132,  194,  221 

Fruit,  161 


276  Index 

Fuller,  Mrs.,  on  native  women,  120 
Functionaries,  village,  56 

GAME,  159 

Games,  Anglo-Indian,  236 
Glad  Cry,  the,  259 
Government,  representative,  174 
Government  appointments,  171 
Griffin,  the,  185 

HALF-castes,  208 
Hareem,  the,  98 
Hareem  women,  103 
Health  in  India,  267 
Himalayas,  the,  6,  261 
Hindus,  the,  13,  40,  170 
Hoarding  money,  60 
Homes,  Indian,  61,  139 
Hopefuls,  young,  172 
Hospitality,  260 
Hot  weather,  the,  222 
Hotels,  Indian,  186 

IDIOSYNCRASIES,  native,  37 

Idleness  of  natives,  102 

Inaccessibility  of  natives,  144 

India  as  it  is,  3 

Indian  at  home,  127 

Intellectual  capacity  of  Hindus,  170 

JACKS  in  office,  67 
Jains,  the,  14 
Jews,  14 

Judges,  native,  72 
Justice,  sale  of,  72 


Index  277 


,  English  esteemed,  42 
Karta,  the,  129 
Khodajdne,  52 
Kings,  63 
Kolarian  stock,  5 
Kulin  Brahmins,  29 

LABOURING  castes,  20 
Ladies,  196,  216,  261 
"Ladies  last, "98 
Lamps,  mineral  oil,  34 
Languages,  4 

Laughter,  etiquette  of,  147 
Lawyers,  native,  167 
Leper's  curse,  96 
Lies,  land  of,  250 
Life,  bungalow,  212 

Hindu  home,  127,  142 

out-of-door,  227 

peasant  home,  135,  138 

Lilly,  Mr.,  quotation  from,  176 

Litigation,  73,  163 

Loafers,  210 

Lutnberdar,  the,  95 

Luxuries,  European  tinned,  189 

MAHOMEDANS,  the,  12,  15,  41 

Manners  and  customs,  36 

Manu,  Institutes  of,  19 

Marriage,  early  consummation  of,  117 

,  Hindu,  117 

,  Mahomedan,  no 

Marwarries,  the,  60 
Maternity,  easy,  106 
Meat,  161 
Men-at-arms,  81 


278  Index 

Military,  the,  84,  203 
Military  castes,  19 
Military  civilians,  203 
Mogul,  the  Great,  13 
Money-lenders,  142,  167 
Moplahs,  the,  15 
Music,  native,  146 
Musicians,  90 

NATIONAL  Congress,  176 
Nautch-girls,  no,  147 
Non-official  classes,  205 
Nuisances  of  life,  253 
Nukkle  Slnf,  174 
Nuzzers,  71 

OFFICIATE,  English,  202 
-  ,  native,  78 
Outcastes,  22 
Outcasting,  effect  of,  23 


,  survival  of,  256 
Papers,  daily,  191 
Parents,  natives  as,  143 
Pariahs,  21,  208 
Parsees,  14 
Pastimes,  133 
Patel,  the,  95 
Peasant  life,  135,  142 
Pestilence,  157 
Pig-sticking,  239 
Plague,  the,  157 
Planter,  Anglo-Indian,  233 
Planting,  tea,  description  of,  234 
Policemen,  Indian,  74 
Polo,  238 


Index  279 


Potter,  the,  89 

Precedence,  196 

Priests,  1 8,  125 

Progress,  path  of,  168 

Prostitution,  compulsory  religious,  113,  116 

/im/aA-women,  101 

QUACKERY  of  native  doctors,  92 

RAILWAYS,  n,  186,  232 
Rain,  native  joy  at,  154 
Rajahs,  51,  62,  64 
Rajputana,  6 
Recreations,  260 
Regrets,  Land  of,  183,  271 
Rice,  24 

Ripon,  Lord,  his  policy,  174 
Roman  Catholics,  14 
Ryot,  the,  51,  54 

SAI/T  tax,  54 

Scorpions,  160 

Seclusion,  zenana,  102 

Sepia  surroundings,  244 

Sepoy,  the  native,  85 

Servants,  native,  218,  230,  244 

Shooting,  246,  262 

Shopkeepers,  native,  189,  192 

Sikhs,  the,  14,  42 

Sind,  6 

Snakes,  160 

Soldiers,  81 

Spins,  Anglo-Indian,  197 

Sport,  227 

Status,  social,  205 

Suez  Caaal,  10,  168,  201 


a8o  Index 

Sunshine,  in  the,  141 
Superstition,  88,  123 
Suttee,  cold,  122 
Sweetmeats,  162 

TAMASHA,  native,  146 
Tea  planting,  178 
Temperance,  145 
Tent  life,  229 
Thrift,  40,  137 
Toddy,  162 

Tommy  Atkins,  207,  265 
Tonga  transit,  188 
Travelling,  187 

UMBRELLAS,  33 
Usury,  167 

"V.  P.  "POST,  191 

Vegetarianism,  160 
Vegetarians,  Hindu,  85 
Verandah,  225 
Vermin,  160 
Visiting,  187 

WAGES,  rate  of,  164 

Walking,  disinclination  for,  193 

Warrens,  human,  139 

Weddings,  native,  109 

Wellesley,  Lord,  8 

Wheelbarrows  and  coolies,  46 

Widows,  113,  118,  123 

Wild  beasts,  159 

Wingate,  Sir  G.,  report  of,  166 

Wives,  Hindu,  100 

,  Mahomedan,  100 


Index 


281 


Women,  106,  113,  133,  144,  148,  151 
Women's  wrongs,  113 
Work,  capacity  of  natives  for,  170 
Working-man,  British,  206 

ZENANA,  the,  134 
Zenana  women,  98,  134 


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